Witness
by terra-incognito
Summary: Ginny Weasley has a terrible secret--one that could destroy the fragile balance between good and evil forever--throw in a bitter Draco, depressed Harry, warm and fuzzy Tom Riddle, a mysterious pact, and lots of snogging--need I say more?
1. Prologue:Four Beginnings

Summary: The summer after Harry Potter finally defeated the Dark Lord was celebrated one in the wizarding world. Celebrated by everyone except those closest to the conflict. Now it's time for the trio to return to Hogwarts for their seventh year, and new discoveries about themselves, their friends, and their worst enemies. Why is Ginny hallucinating? Why is Harry sulking? Why is Hermione setting things on fire? Why is Draco brooding? And most of all, will anyone but Hermione pass their N.E.W.T.S?  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own a thing.Which is sad, because it might be nice to be richer than the queen of England. ________________________________________________________________________  
  
Waking up was always a battle. A frenzied struggle through the depths of her mind to break the surface of consciousness. A struggle against her dreams, her memories; seductive creatures that tore at her spirit, pulled her back into the nightly torture she engaged in, reliving the final battle night after night, only to convince herself, and her family, that she was okay...This morning, she lost the battle....  
  
***  
  
She had a sword.  
  
Heavy...it was too heavy for her frame, really, about the length of her arm, or a little longer, encrusted in jewels and engraved with a name. Godric Gryffindor.  
  
Her hands clutched the hilt so tightly that blood seeped through her cuticles. Her breath was coming in shallow gasps, she knew she should breathe, but couldn't. Couldn't make her chest relax, couldn't unknot her stomach to let the air come in.  
  
The acrid smoke drifting over the graveyard stung her eyes and they welled up, blurring her vision, and she stumbled, the cold metal of the sword knocking against her already bruised thighs. She was clumsy...too clumsy for this...it was too important... Around her, everything was noise, everything was chaos, screams pierced the fog like beacons, reaching out to her, groping for her, trying to touch her with their pain... looking for comfort? Looking for help? She didn't know, couldn't stop long enough to care....she was running. Had to keep running. She chanted this over and over again to herself in time with her pounding footsteps as she bounded across the graves, ducked under a stray spell and thought, this can't be the real world. The real world was quidditch, and butterbeer and late potions homework...  
  
The real world was not wizard against wizard, good against evil, light against dark in a winner takes all battle... The only problem was...this was the real world. For all of Dumbledore's careful diplomacy, meticulous planning...for all of Fudge's narrow-minded politics...they must have known it would come down to this. This terror, this agony, this slaughter.  
  
Which was why Ginny found herself in possession of the sword, running faster than she had ever run in her life, or ever would, because if she wasn't fast enough...it could all be over. The sun was rising over the dingy gray looking horizon, casting an ethereal glow over the ugly scene before her. She was taking too long, she thought wildly, panic rising in the pit of her stomach, it had been too long--she bounded over a cracked headstone--a jet of green light shot past her head and she ran faster, past a crypt that had been split wide open, over the body of a wizard who had been burned beyond recognition...  
  
And suddenly...there he was. She was almost surprised to find him there, though she had been looking for him...The sight of him was almost dazzling, standing there on a low incline, bony frame almost shaking with...pain? power? The rising sun cast a sort of halo around him, and he looked very much what she imagined the archangel Gabriel to have looked like battling down the forces of hell. And if ever the forces of hell were embodied, it was in Lord Voldemort. Dark robes billowing around him, pale, snakelike face grinning malevolently at Harry, he was speaking, his lips were moving, but she couldn't tell what he was saying... It was like a perfect painting of the eternal struggle between light and dark, something was happening, happening to both of them, and she couldn't see...couldn't quite see...  
  
Run! Her brain screamed at her, and her feet pounded against the charred earth once more, taking her closer and closer to the scene that had stunned her. Apprehension took root somewhere deep, deeper than her bones, deep in her soul she felt the power crackling in the air as she ran towards him....and suddenly, right in front of her, no angel after all--was Harry. The look on his face frightened her, and she slowed a little, for now that she was here, there was only one thing to do, and she didn't know how to do it.  
  
"Harry." she gasped," Take this..." her voice cracked as she fumbled with the sword, shoving it into his free hand, the hand that wasn't holding a wand pointed at Voldemort... "Dumbledore says you know what to do with i-" her voice trailed off weakly as the thin, reptilian face of the dark lord turned to her, and he began to laugh...and laugh. It was a low, grating, screeching sound, the worst sound she'd ever heard, and it brought new meaning to the words 'my blood ran cold'. And he kept on laughing, the hysterical, forlorn laughter of a madman in despair.  
  
"You think you've won." the hissing voice said. "You've only just scratched the surface of this, Harry Potter. Go on, go on, stick old Gryffindor's sword right through my heart, you know you want to..."  
  
Ginny felt slightly dizzy and she stumbled back a few steps, as her brain gave up "Run" as a mantra and opted instead for "Oh God I'm going to die."  
  
"Take that final step, Potter. I've learned my lesson...have you learned yours?" Voldemort hissed. "I'll tell you what it is, your dear mum and dad learned it too late, boy, and they died for it, and you'll die too, you'll go straight to hell right along with--"  
  
"SHUT UP!" Harry roared, and Ginny jumped. His arm shot out and he grabbed her hand tightly.  
  
It was like someone had vacuum sucked her insides...she was empty, gasping, couldn't get enough oxygen, couldn't even stand, her knees were buckling, and Harry was lunging forward with the sword, plunging it into the heart of the dark lord, and for one moment everything was dazzlingly clear, oh they had been so stupid...and Ginny screamed. She screamed and screamed for him to stop, but it wouldn't stop, ever...and a pain...a pain like nothing she had ever known a pain like lightning coursed through and as quick as lightning it was gone, and darkness closed over her...  
  
***  
  
Ginny woke abruptly, but didn't open her eyes. Instead she lay very still. Waiting. For what, she wasn't sure. Maybe for Fred and George to come walking through her bedroom door, laughing, talking, Fred would throw her over his shoulder and they'd go downstairs for breakfast, where Mum would be cooking eggs and toast and jam and sausages...her father would be singing in the shower, some muggle tune he'd picked up somewhere...of course none of that happened. The house, as usual, was silent.  
  
No, she wasn't waiting for that. She'd given up waiting for that a long time ago. She was waiting for him. Waiting for that low, musical voice to tell her it was okay to open her eyes, okay to start the day, to tell her that the coast was clear, that she was safe...Ginny snuggled down under her covers, burying her head under the sheets. It seemed everything frightened her these days, but nothing frightened her more than the moment between waking and sleeping, the moment right before she opened her eyes, because she never knew what she'd see.  
  
She took a shaky breath and threw the covers off, blinking in the sunlight streaming in through her bedroom window. Her sleepy eyes perused the room quickly. Same peeling red paint on the walls, same wardrobe, half of the left wardrobe door was missing--she remembered it crashing to the floor, she remember crawling under it, hiding, watching those black boots circle her room, she'd never seen his face, the man who had come in the night and killed her parents...Ginny hadn't let anyone repair it, despite the jagged wood edges of the door. There was the same faded rug on the same wood floor, the same curtains hanging in the same window...she sighed. The same boy who came to her every morning, standing patiently by the window.  
  
He wore shabby Hogwarts robes, which he plucked at unconsciously with slender white fingers, his black hair fell over his forehead in a way that she might have called rakishly charming, had she cared enough to notice. His eyes were black, rimmed with blue and framed by dark lashes. He smiled, revealing two rows of perfect white teeth.  
  
"Good morning, Virginia." he said pleasantly.  
  
She ignored him and slid out of bed, padding quickly across the sun warmed floor to her wardrobe, pulling out her dressing gown. "Not real." she hummed to herself, pulling the dressing gown tightly around her shoulders.  
  
"Did you sleep well?" he asked.  
  
Her gaze flicked over to him warily. "You know I didn't, Tom." she said truculently.  
  
He tutted at her, still smiling. "Manners."  
  
Ginny sighed. "Not real." she said quietly to herself. "Ignore it, ignore it, ig-"  
  
Tom laughed lightly. "Yes, yes, just keep telling yourself that. You know the truth. You..." he paused and grinned malevolently. "You saw..."  
  
"Yes, yes," Ginny murmured. "That's all very well and good....you keep saying that, I saw this, I saw that...If I saw anything, I don't remember, now will you please go away?"  
  
"If I'm a figment of your imagination," Tom replied. "Why don't you make me go away?" he smiled again. "I'll tell you why..." and now his voice was the voice of her mother. "Because it's real. It's always been real, always will be real, Ginny, my love."  
  
Her eyes stung with tears. "Stop it."  
  
Now the voice coming out of his mouth was her father. "Fine. I'm just proving a point, you know. You've got to start listening to me..." he laughed harshly and now his voice was George's. "Wise up, Gin. You know what's going on...you know, and yet you keep quiet...why?"  
  
"Stop..." she whimpered. "Please stop."  
  
He winked at her. "You don't want me to stop," he murmured in Sirius Black's rough tenor. "You like it...hearing them come back to you. Selfish girl."  
  
"Go away." Ginny sniffled, the steady ache of misery twisting in her chest. "Just go."  
  
"Make me." he challenged her again, and he continued speaking in her mother's voice, low and soothing. "I'll never go away, I'll always be here, always with you, always, because deep down you want me here, don't you..."  
  
Ginny pressed her temple against the jagged edge of the wood, feeling the sharp ends cut into the delicate skin. She pressed harder, trying to inflict as much pain on herself as possible. If only the sharp spike of wood would go right through to her brain, pierce whatever part of her held Tom inside.  
  
"Oh stop that, you stupid girl." Tom laughed. "It's so much deeper than electric impulses and gray matter..."  
  
She could feel the slick trail of blood trickling down her cheek. Yes, that's it, she thought. A little more, just a little more...concentrate on the pain and he'll go away because he's not real, not real, not real...  
  
"It's a lost cause, dear, but then again, you always did have a soft spot for lost causes. How's Harry these days?"  
  
The pain in her head was blinding, and Tom laughed harder.  
  
"All right, stop now." he said.  
  
"Go. Away." she gritted out. "GO AWAY!"  
  
Her bedroom door opened suddenly and she jerked away from the wardrobe. Her brother Charlie peeked in. "Ginny? It's breakfast..." he paused. "What happened to your head?"  
  
Ginny blinked. "Nothing." she replied innocently.  
  
_______________________________________________________________________  
  
"This place," Blaise Zabini said with distinction, "is a dive." She cast a critical eye around the Hog's Head and shook herself a little, her delicate grecian features wrinkling with disgust.  
  
Her companion regarded her silently, and a little shiver of fear crept up Blaise's back. She wasn't quite sure what she was doing here; she only knew that she had received a telegram five days ago, bidding her to meet someone her tonight, and she'd felt a strange need to come. But the hooded figure who'd met her had only said enough to introduce himself as 'Piers'.  
  
Blaise examined her fingernails, frowning. "Why is it that if you're the one who's got a message for me, I'm the only one talking?" she continued irritably. "I have places to be, you know."  
  
Piers nodded. "I...have information for you." he said hesitantly. Or, she thought he was hesitant. It was hard to gauge someone's emotions when you couldn't see their face. "For your father..."  
  
The raven haired girl froze. "My father is dead." she snapped. "Some informant you are."  
  
She could have sworn he laughed. "I didn't know if the rumors were true."  
  
"Gee. Not my problem." she glared at him menacingly. "So...the information? Or am I wasting my time here?"  
  
"Not for me to decide." Piers replied airily. "Is it true that you are the last remaining Zabini?"  
  
Blaise hesitated. "Yes..."  
  
"Then you know the location of the Necrominicon."  
  
She gasped sharply, fear flooding her. "Who are you?"  
  
"You do, don't you?"  
  
"I..." she paused."I know who has it..." Blaise frowned. "What do you know about it?"  
  
Piers shifted uncomfortably and Blaise cast a quick look around the pub. Everyone appeared to be going about their business, but looks were usually deceiving.  
  
"I know enough."  
  
"Why did you call me here?" She tensed herself to make a break for it.  
  
"I...uh..." Piers shifted again. "I can't tell you that."  
  
"Can't or won't?" she said nastily, wishing fervently that she had bothered to pass her apparating test.  
  
"I want you to disappear." Piers said abruptly. "I mean-"  
  
Blaise took a sip of butterbeer, before she cut in, "You want me to disappear?"  
  
"This portkey," he set a rusty tailpipe on the table, "will take you to an island off the coast of Ireland, where you'll be...safe."  
  
"Safe from whom?" Blaise asked casually, chewing on her lower lip.  
  
"I think it's best that you don't know."  
  
Blaise leaned forward a little. "I just have one question." she said.  
  
"I imagine you have more," Piers replied with an audible chuckle.  
  
Blaise considered this. "You're right." she said. "But only one more to ask you."  
  
Piers remained silent and she took that as acquiescence.  
  
"Who sent you?"  
  
Piers didn't reply right away. "N-no one sent me."  
  
"No, who sent you?" her voice took on a threatening note. "Who wants The Necrominicon?"  
  
Somewhere in the bar, a fight had broken out; no one was listening to their conversation. Two of the barmaids were trying to break up the fight, something that had to be entertaining to the 90% male population of the Hog's Head. The barmaids, however, seemed to be handling themselves nicely. Blaise didn't give pause to really watch the fight though, she had finally unnerved the hooded stranger, and she wasn't about to let the opportunity slip away.  
  
"No one sent me." the stranger repeated. "Just go, won't you?" He prodded the tailpipe towards her. "Your pride won't do you much good if you're dead."  
  
Blaise's eyes widened. "Who's going to kill me? Who wants the Necrominicon? If you really want to help; you've got to tell me...who sent you?"  
  
"No one sent me." Piers repeated firmly. "But the one who has The Necrominicon is looking for you: Blaise Zabini. And if she finds you, you'll wish you'd never been born."  
  
"Why is she looking for me?" Blaise demanded.  
  
"You're the only one who can consummate the circle...the only one who knows the sacred places, and how to protect them or destroy them."  
  
"The...circle?"  
  
Piers laughed bitterly. "You don't understand, and you won't, not until..." he sighed. "Just GO!"  
  
Blaise set her jaw. "No." she said firmly, slamming her hands on the table and rising to her feet. "I won't run from some cracked, posturing, weedy minion with an overdeveloped sense of authority!" Her voice rose several notches with every word and it wasn't until the last syllable had been uttered until she realized two things. The first was that the bar was completely silent. The second was that no one was looking at her, despite her outburst.  
  
They were instead staring at a procession of robed figures, robes that in fact disturbingly resembled Piers', only way, way creepier. They were chanting something in a language Blaise didn't understand. A hand reached across the table and grabbed her wrist tightly. "Ow!" Blaise hissed, snatching her hand back angrily.  
  
"Go!" Piers hissed at her. "Go now before it's too late!" there was an unspoken 'You mentally deficient bint' tacked onto the end. She opened her mouth to reply, but he dissaparated with a loud crack. The sound seemed to break the eerie spell that had fallen over the pub, and the sinister looking robes all looked at her at once. A tingle of apprehension shivered its way down her back. This was, for lack of a better word, bad. She glanced around the bar for other exits, but there was only the one, and creepy robe guys were advancing on her from every direction. Somewhere a clock was striking midnight. The witching hour, her terrified mind mused...her eyes traveled desperately over the mesmerized faces of the bar patrons, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, and suddenly her eyes alighted on a face that was familiar, but she couldn't quite place it-- and the girl started screaming at her, "Pick up the portkey, stupid!"  
  
Yes, the only option left was a wholly undesirable one. Blaise wasn't about to trust someone she'd only just met...who knew where she'd end up? Well, she knew where she'd end up if she stayed here...her hand shot out and snatched up the tailpipe, the last thing she saw before she felt the pull behind her navel was a knife flying through the air towards her head.  
  
****  
  
Blaise landed facedown on a beach--it was a sandy, rainy, misty stretch of land and she could see about a foot in front of her at a time. She had just scrambled to her feet when a tall, hooded figure appeared through the fog. Her heart jumped into her throat and she stumbled backwards gracelessly. "Why won't you people leave me alone!" she screamed as he closed in on her.  
  
The figure laughed. It was a kind, soft, vaguely familiar laugh. Two aged hands reached up to push back the hood and Blaise found herself staring at the smiling face of Albus Dumbledore.  
  
"Professor Dumbledore!" she breathed, relief coursing through her. "What are you doing here?"  
  
Dumbledore didn't answer right away; he glanced down at his watch. "12:01 on the dot." he smiled. "You always were very punctual, Ms. Zabini."  
  
Blaise frowned. "I don't understand...how did you know I'd be here?"  
  
"You told me yourself." Dumbledore explained ineffectually. "Now, I suggest we continue this conversation in a warmer environment, perhaps my office?" He retrieved an old leather book out of his pocket. "And don't worry about your things; you've already had them sent up to the school."  
  
____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
"Interesting."  
  
"More like 'disappointing', but suit yourself."  
  
"Disappointing?"  
  
"She's alive."  
  
"I was under the impression that it was the other one that mattered."  
  
"The circle remains intact, and that is what matters. Alone, they are insignificant. Together, they may pose a considerable threat."  
  
"So how do you plan to break them?"  
  
"Killing them, obviously, what do you think I was trying to do? Unfortunately, Zabini survived."  
  
"Yes, how did that happen?"  
  
"If you want the truth, my lord, I'm not entirely sure. Someone, or something interfered."  
  
"So we go ahead as planned."  
  
"For now."  
  
"Is there anything else you're not telling me?"  
  
"No, my lord." there was a pause. "May I ask...?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Who is it, the one you've found? I'm just curious to know, I've been searching for her for so long..."  
  
There was a slight, whispery chuckle and the low, musical voice replied. "She's... an old friend."  
  
____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
He was killing himself.  
  
Not in the conventional way, but slowly he was doing the job all the same. The boy bestowed with the Malfoy name, and all that came with it-- ruthlessness, cruelty, power--was tired. He was so tired that sometimes breathing wore him down. The idea of waking up every day, only to see the darkness closing in around him frightened him more than anything ever had. But as he feared it, he also found himself embracing it. Embracing the idea that things were going to get worse, and that he would allow himself to slide into that dark night without a whisper of resistance.  
  
It just didn't matter anymore.  
  
Through the window of the carriage he could see the procession of black- winged thestrals, though that was a strange word to describe such morbid looking creatures, they were trundling up the hill towards Hogwarts.  
  
Hogwarts itself rose majestically into the velvety night sky like a beacon of hope, of light, of eternal strength. In the dark you couldn't tell that half of the expansive lawns were scorched black. You almost couldn't see the gaping hole left where the astronomy tower had once been.  
  
But his ability to appreciate things like safety and comfort had vanished with the rest of his emotions. Hogwarts was just another castle, just another place for the exceptionally stupid to get together to celebrate their victory over the dark lord. Another temple to worship bloody Potter.  
  
Victory?  
  
What did that mean now?  
  
His taste for victory, his drive to win, to claim what should be his as a Malfoy...those feelings were gone too, taking with them the only sense of self he had ever possessed. Who was he? Not Draco Malfoy.  
  
What, and who Draco Malfoy had been was gone, and in its place only fear and rage remained. Rage so deep and so consuming it was like another being inside him, writhing, whispering, lying in wait for the right moment to strike. And he chose his moments carefully...his moment of the week was Pansy Parkinson.  
  
He couldn't bear to look in the mirror anymore...the only person who looked back was a man with too many demons. A man who cherished and nurtured the demons that were slowly but surely devouring everything that he had once recognized in himself.  
  
Some sort of silky fabric brushed against his leg and his jaw clenched. "What?" he bit out angrily.  
  
"Aren't you going to talk to me?" Pansy pouted in his ear.  
  
Jerking his head away from the fingernails that scraped against the line of his jaw, he turned to glare menacingly at her. "Wasn't planning on it. Let's face it, darling, you're not the most gripping conversationalist."  
  
Pansy pouted some more and leaned closer to him. "We don't have to talk."  
  
He grimaced.  
  
She changed tack. "You look sad." A pause. "Won't you let me make you feel better?"  
  
He swallowed a nasty remark, then thought better of it. "If you really want to make me feel better, Pansy," she leaned forward eagerly. "I suggest you throw yourself into the nearest available lake." He smirked.  
  
Her green eyes darkened, and she sniffed haughtily, making her look even more like a pug than usual, as she flounced into the seat across from him. "You're despicable, Draco," she said.  
  
Despicable Draco, he mused. It had a nice ring to it.  
  
The carriages rolled to a holt, and Pansy huffed out, running to join her other friends. Draco moved more slowly. He felt old. All his muscles ached and there was a throbbing pain building behind his left eye.  
  
Weary eyes, eyes that were much older than the boy who owned them, scanned the faces of his classmates. They looked tired, too. Worn, beaten...and...hopeful. But none of them looked at him; none of them met his gaze. Their eyes slid over and around him as if he weren't there, and Draco...found he didn't care.  
  
He had entered his own kind of darkness, something deeper than the legions of dim could hope to understand. It surrounded him, it dwelt in him, and he had embraced it.  
  
________________________________________________________________________  
  
Next chapter: Luna Lovegood makes an appearance, as does Draco's Hair Gel, and the trio meet their new DADA professor...eeeeeek! 


	2. Chapter One: Speaking in tongues

Author's Note: Spot the 'Angel' reference and get a cookie! Also...everything that I said was going to happen in this chapter? Um, doesn't. Sorry. Enjoy it anyway!  
  
____________________________________________________________________________ ____  
  
Sunrise in Romania dawned so darkly and silently on its inhabitants, that if you weren't looking for it, you were sure to miss it. Rather than the breathtaking palette of pinks and golds streaking the sky, there was a gradual lightening behind the heavy rain clouds that had been hanging overhead for the last week.  
  
Completing the dreary picture was a castle, a stronghold, so huge and ancient that if it hadn't been enchanted with a number of anti-muggle charms, it would have been infested with anthropologist and tourist alike. Which would have been an unfortunate decision on their part, as they might have found themselves face to face with a Peruvian Vipertooth: a dragon with an alarming taste for humans; or a Ukrainian Ironbelly: known to reach a weight of six tons.  
  
The castle was the camp for a team of Magizoologists studying dragons, and at the moment, everyone inside the camp--wizard and dragon alike were sleeping peacefully.  
  
All except for one.  
  
Huddled near the dragon pens was a thin boy with untidy black hair and bright green eyes behind round spectacles. His posture was one of defeat, though his face still betrayed signs of youth.  
  
The dragons had roamed the earth for hundreds of years, the castle had stood in its place for more than an age, yet Harry Potter felt older still.  
  
At the moment, his eyes were fixed on a small mountain of letters on the packed dirt floor of the pens, but he wasn't reading them. He'd already memorized every word.  
  
Dear Harry, Hope you're well. Charlie says that you're really enjoying Romania. Things are just chaos here. Everyone's asking for you, you wouldn't believe some of the letters we've gotten. We all really miss you Harry, we hope you come home soon...  
  
Harry, Congratulations on being made quidditch captain mate. Hermione's got Head Girl, and bloody Malfoy is head boy. What a life. You can bet that prat will be lording it around every chance he gets. That's something to look forward to next term. Anyway, see you soon...  
  
Dear Harry, Seamus's memorial was yesterday, and I really hoped we might see you there, or in Diagon Alley, but Charlie said that you bought everything by owl- order. We can't wait until term starts and we can see you again, I think this is going to be a really good year, of course N.E.W.T.S. will be really difficult, but...  
  
"So...what do you think?" Harry queried dully, his eyes flicking away from the letters. "Are these on the level, Norbert old buddy?"  
  
The Norwegian Ridgeback slowly lifted one massive eyelid long enough to give him a deeply reproachful look, as if to say 'You're disturbing my sleep for this?' before lowering it again in slumber.  
  
"That's what I thought, too." Harry sighed.  
  
He slumped back against the cold stone of the wall, pressing his forehead against it and taking another sip of firewhisky. His summer had been spent half in and out of an alcohol induced stupor, sitting in his room most days and staring for hours at a time at nothing, or hiding out in the dragon pens talking to Norbert, the only person he could stand to be around these days.  
  
Charlie's friends had mercifully refrained from talking to him, and he stayed out of their way as often as possible, usually seeing them only at mealtimes, when there were more pressing matters to discuss-- like the nearby farmers complaining about how many of their cows were disappearing, or the Vipertooth that still tried to kill anyone that got near it.  
  
"They may as well just say 'Dear Harry, we all know you've gone completely crackers since killing Voldemort, although we have no idea why, as you should be really happy about it, and frankly, we're quite bitter about the matter. But we're not going to say anything because we think it would further unhinge you and you'd become a power-maddened fiend and kill us all. Love, the World.'"  
  
His mirthless laugh echoed eerily in the cavernous dragon pen, and he was reminded suddenly and strongly of a church.  
  
*A church for fire-breathing lizards, and a boy who lost his faith before he even realized he had it.*  
  
Harry had only been in a church once, the day he arrived in Romania and had to wait in the small muggle town for someone to pick him up. He'd wandered into every building on the plain street, and finally into a tiny, white building; dustier and more silent than the library at Hogwarts. The stained glass windows threw bright patches of light on the floor that creaked as he moved across it.  
  
Growing up, he knew only that church existed. The Dursleys had always maintained that church wasn't a place for people like him. Although they hadn't attended much either. There was a derogatory term for people like the Dursleys: Chreasters. Those who have the nerve to show their sinning faces only at Christmas and Easter, packing the church, filling the pews and making it difficult for regular, Christ-loving faithful to get seats, thus provoking disdain and resentment. Harry fielded enough disdain and resentment on his own time, and hadn't bothered to argue when they trussed Dudley up in his Sunday best (which actually made him look like a humongous prat, not to mention an Easter egg, Harry thought with no little amount of vindication) and sent Harry off to Mrs.Figg's.  
  
Later, he spent Christmas and Easter at Hogwarts, and it hadn't crossed his mind again.  
  
He wondered idly what day of the year it was, and if the faithful were on their way to churches everywhere to pray for salvation.  
  
*Why pray to a dead man? * He thought bitterly. *I'll save you. It's what I do.*  
  
Years ago, the night of Sirius's murder, a night that was so clear and sharp that it sliced his heart open whenever he thought about it, he remembered Hermione warning him not to go after Sirius--  
  
*"You...this isn't criticism, Harry! But you do...sort of...I mean--don't you think you've got a bit of a--a--saving-people thing?"*  
  
He'd been furious at the time, and now...and now...it didn't seem to matter whether or not he was playing the hero because to everyone else he was the hero, and so he must do a pretty damn good job of pretending.  
  
*You were wrong, Hermione. I AM a saving-people thing. It's my Destiny, capital 'd,' cue the trumpets.*  
  
He glanced back at the letters and felt a cold wave of dread wash over him. In a few hours time he would be on his way back to Hogwarts.  
  
*We miss you. We hope to see you soon. Translated; we hope you haven't gone off the deep end.* "And what a tragedy *that* would be." Harry muttered. He took another swig of firewhisky. "It would have been so much easier for everyone if I had died." he said conversationally to Norbert, leaning closer to the dragon's cage. "If I had somehow managed to get myself killed along with Voldemort." he paused. "Then..." he coughed and rubbed roughly at his temples. His head felt like it was swimming. "They could all mourn me in peace, without the inconvenience of a real person." He let his throbbing head fall into his hands. "I'd probably have a wing named after me at St.Mungos, and they could have their bloody memorial...like for Seamus...I didn't save him...I- " a sob was fiercely trying to get out of his throat be he was just as stubbornly refusing to cry. "And everyone could have got on with their lives. What use am I to anyone now?" He sighed breezily and pulled his cloak tighter around him.  
  
"You know," he continued after another sip of whisky, though he felt his equilibrium leaning dangerously to the left. "Jesus...died for other people's sins." he paused. "But I'm living with mine, and..." He felt his eyes burning, but that could have been from the alcohol.  
  
*And it's so much harder to live. *  
  
Unbidden, a picture of Ginny Weasley came into his mind, the way she had looked at that final moment. Her eyes had looked so huge, so empty, so frightened, and her mouth was open...it had taken him a moment to realize that she was screaming, would have been screaming, had she possessed the air. Not as if he would have been able to hear her. His own screams were too loud in his ears. But her eyes...they had screamed louder than her throat ever could. They had been so empty, and yet brimming over with something...  
  
Something that had touched him. An untainted part of him buried deep below the scar tissue. In the end, he knew, that was what had saved them all. A hidden reservoir of innocence and trust and love and...hope, deep inside him, waiting to be found. And it had almost killed them both.  
  
He had never thanked her.  
  
Then again, no one had ever thanked him, either.  
  
It made him angry only because he then felt as though he hadn't done a thing. It wasn't his life he was risking, and it wasn't even him making the decisions. It was his Destiny.  
  
People had embraced him, wept over him; some people had the nerve to touch his scar as if it were some sort of talisman. They'd even thanked God for him.  
  
And there was that word again.  
  
God.  
  
Religion.  
  
Faith.  
  
His last scrap of faith in humanity, in the world, had been spent defeating the dark lord, and now that it was gone, he had a hard time remembering what it had felt like, and even where it had come from. It was the question that kept him awake at night as he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling until his internal clock told him it was morning and he either rolled over and went to sleep, or crept down to the dragon cages for a chat. He never slept at night.  
  
At night, he only thought. And only about one thing. His faith. Where had it come from, and where had it gone?  
  
He'd only ever gotten one answer. "Would you like to hear my theory about me?" Harry asked Norbert. The dragon didn't answer, but then, he was a dragon, and they didn't specifically talk, so much as they tried to eat you. "Well here it is." Harry said. "You see, I thought something came next. Something after Voldemort, something other than Destiny. Voldemort was supposed to die, and it would end, I would be over...this..." he struggled. "Fear." he worried at his lower lip thoughtfully. "This gnawing feeling...like I'm trapped."  
  
At least before, his fear had a name. Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, He-Who- Must-Not-Be-Named, Lord Thingy....and they could all be defeated. Now there was no Voldemort, he had been defeated, and it was almost worse because his fears remained. And he didn't really feel like fighting them anymore.  
  
"We have met our enemy." Harry intoned blandly. "And he is ourselves. Or something. Right, Norbert?"  
  
The dragon slept on indifferently. Harry wanted to lie down next to him and sleep for the next ten years.  
  
Instead, he pointed his wand at the letters on the ground and muttered "Incendio." He felt a sick pleasure course through him at the sight of the flames.  
  
Then he stood up, brushed off his jeans, and headed to the kitchens to scrounge up some breakfast.  
  
Overhead, the rumble of thunder and the distant cry of an Augurey promised rain. Unfortunately, the Boy Who Lived didn't put his faith in promises anymore.  
  
____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
Like it had been in those last crucial days, everything that was left to be said had been said, and everything that hadn't--unanswered questions, unresolved tensions, secrets darker than most would guess--couldn't be said. So the silence between Ron and Ginny, while not entirely comfortable, also wasn't particularly unusual.  
  
They were sitting on the landing of the main staircase, long legs dangling over the side, through the railing, as they watched the students arrive, like an ocean, wave after wave of people crashing and breaking against each other as the filed into the great hall. "Bet you're glad you came early." Ron said at one point.  
  
"Yeah." Ginny agreed, and they lapsed into silence again. The crowd was alternately loud and soft, as though they were not sure noise was allowed yet. The long silence of the past year was stretching its fingers into this one and taking hold. Ron felt a stab of uneasiness and anguish at the thought, and wished absently that Fred and George were there to drop a bag of dungbombs on the lot of them. Or even that Peeves was there. But the poltergeist had been told under no uncertain circumstances was he to frighten anyone, as everyone was still twitchy, and having stunning spell flying through the air on the first day of term was a very bad idea.  
  
"Do you want to go down for the sorting?" Ginny asked absently  
  
Ron glanced down at the frightened looking first years trailing into the hall in a steady trickle. He could see Professor McGonagall, but couldn't hear what she was saying, though from the familiar look on her face he imagined he didn't really need to, having heard the same speech seven years before.  
  
"Nah." He shrugged. "You can, though."  
  
"No, it's okay."  
  
Silence.  
  
Ron gave his sister a sideways glance. "You should at least go down and eat." This was true. Ginny, who had never been stout, had steadily been losing weight over the summer. The only indication she gave that she had even noticed was to comment once that her shoulders stuck out in a funny way. Her eyes seemed unnaturally large in her face, which looked thinner and more tired than the rest of her, though her skin was still the peaches and cream complexion of her childhood. Hermione had the same tired look, if slightly less pronounced, and she managed to smile sometimes, in between worrying about Harry.  
  
"Uck." Ginny's mouth twisted in disgust.  
  
"What?" Ron queried.  
  
"Oh, it's jus--" she pointed down into the entrance hall. "Malfoy and Parkinson."  
  
Ron glanced in the direction she was pointing and saw Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson standing quite close together, half obscured by the bust of Griselda the Grotesque. Pansy was facing away from them, but they could see Malfoy's face, and to Ron's delight he looked thoroughly annoyed.  
  
"Uck." Ginny said again. "I can't stand girls like her. Or guys like him, for that matter. Why do people like him?"  
  
"Must be his winning personality." Ron answered dryly.  
  
"Oh, Malfoy," Ginny simpered in a mockery of Pansy. "Despite the fact that you're an enormous prat with no sense of decency whatsoever, I believe you're just misunderstood, even if you will plot to kill me behind my back, I just can't resist you, you mysterious hunk!"  
  
Ron smirked.  
  
"I understand. I *am* irresistible to women." Ginny continued, deepening her voice in a dead-on impression of Malfoy's laconic drawl. "You see, I used to be an evil Death Eater, but defeat and the subsequent death of my posse made me, well, you might say impotent. So now I'm just a big fluffy ferret with bad teeth."  
  
Ron raised his eyebrows and chuckled. Ginny probably didn't give a damn about Malfoy or Parkinson, she was continuing to avoid the subject they'd been avoiding all night, the reason they were really up here instead of at the feast. Namely, the conspicuous absence of his best friend. But that was alright, it was nice to hear more than one sentence out of her.  
  
Pansy reached towards Draco, raising her arms, and Ginny drawled "No, not the hair! Never the hair!" Pansy stomped her foot and put her hands on her hips. "But there must be some way I can express my undying love for you." Ginny squeaked before changing back to the deep drawl as she said, "No, brooding and scowling is my job. And trying to scare first years, and prancing around like a humongous poof is truly thanks enough." she laughed a little and then falsetto, "I understand, I have a nephew who's gay, so..." She paused again to quell her giggles and drawled "Say no more! There are still semi-evil deeds to be done. And I'm almost out of that nancy-boy hair gel I like SO much. Quickly, to the Draco-mobile, away!"  
  
They were almost breathless with laughter as Pansy stomped into the great hall, and Malfoy swept out into the gardens.  
  
"No more muggle comics for you, Ginny," a laughing voice said behind them.  
  
Ron looked up. "Hermione! Where've you been?"  
  
"Professor Dumbledore wanted to tell me about Head Girl duties, and actually, Malfoy's supposed to be up there right now. ..argh. I suppose I'd better go chase him down..." she paused. "So...he's not here yet?"  
  
"Who?" Ginny asked. "You-know-who?" "Yes, let's all start calling Harry 'you-know-who', good plan." Ron said sarcastically. "Well he's not here." Ginny told Hermione, ignoring him.  
  
"Oh." she sighed. "Well, I'll just go get Malfoy then."  
  
Ron's face fell, by a fraction of an inch, but Ginny saw it anyway and felt sisterly instincts kick in. She jumped up impulsively. "I'll..." she trailed off. *Wait, what am I doing?*  
  
"I'll do it." she finished with a sigh, shooting Ron a 'you owe me big time' look.  
  
Hermione brightened and Ron grinned at her. "Are you sure?" Hermione said. "I mean--thanks. I just--want to wait for Harry, and--are you sure?"  
  
"Yes." Ginny sighed. * I'm sure I'm going to regret this.*  
  
"Well, tell him the password is Fizzing Whizbees..." Hermione paused, her eyes misting a little. Not that she could be blamed, really, the poor girl had been more than tense the past few months. "Thanks, Ginny."  
  
"It's not a problem." Ginny replied, and with another meaningful look at her brother, she set off after Malfoy.  
  
Ron watched her go as Hermione sat down next to him with a slight sigh. "Thank God." she said. "Honestly, that boy is an absolute nightmare, I can't even believe they let him come back after..." she sighed again, "you know."  
  
Silence closed over them again, but this time it was deafening--there was nothing to distract him, and sitting with Hermione was vastly different than sitting with his sister, there were so many more nuances involved, scent, sound, touch...he shivered slightly.  
  
Hermione opened her mouth, hesitated, and then shut it firmly.  
  
"What?" Ron asked.  
  
"It's--nothing, I just," she hesitated again. "He *is* coming, right? I mean, he wouldn't just...not."  
  
*Yes,* Ron thought. *He would.* "Maybe he missed the train." he replied dutifully.  
  
"Maybe." Hermione bit her lip and looked unconvinced.  
  
"Look," Ron said soothingly. "He'll be here. And if he wasn't coming--he'd owl us or something."  
  
"Yeah, but--" Hermione paused. "He hasn't written all summer. At ALL. Ron, what if something hap-"  
  
Before she could finish her sentence, Ron clamped a hand down over her mouth. "Hermione," he said sternly. "V-Voldemort is dead. Nothing has happened to Harry. He's FINE."  
  
He started to take his hand away, put it back as she began to say "But-"  
  
"He's FINE." Ron repeated, enunciating carefully.  
  
Hermione sighed and nodded, and Ron took his hand off her mouth.  
  
"I just...worry about him."  
  
"I know. Me too." *Sure, let's talk about Harry again, why not? It's all we ever talk about; it's all anyone ever talks about.*  
  
"He seemed so...far away, last year. And when he left, there was still so much to think about, so much to do, that I could ignore it, but now it's like-" her voice broke. "Like there's this...hole...and...he's our best friend, Ron," She swallowed hard against the lump rising in her throat. "What if...what if we just weren't there for him enough...What if he hates us? I couldn't bear it if he hated me!" She started to cry silently.  
  
"Hermione," Ron said soothingly, trying to ignore the fact that she had just voiced his own fears. "Harry does not hate us. He had a rough year. We all did. He needed some time."  
  
"But..." she said in a small voice. "Where is he?"  
  
"On his way here, I assume."  
  
"And if he's not?"  
  
"Then he's in Romania."  
  
"So you think he's not coming back?"  
  
"I didn't SAY that, I-"  
  
At that moment, the door swung open, and a boy tramped in, shaking water out of his hair and looking generally a mess. His glasses were askew, his cloak was trailing haphazardly from his shoulder, but he looked up at them and they saw he was grinning.  
  
Once again the hall was silent, but it wasn't uncomfortable or tense. It was simply complete. And a little reverent, for both parties.  
  
Harry dropped his luggage and climbed the stairs to the landing where they sat. Ron rose to his feet, and helped Hermione up, all three of them grinning stupidly.  
  
"It's not raining." Ron said.  
  
"I came across the lake. I fell in." Harry replied.  
  
And then Hermione shrieked and jumped on him, and it was like they had never been apart, and Ron laughed, the first free, young laugh he had in ages, and wondered whether something this good was too good to last.  
  
____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
Ginny wasn't entirely sure how she came to be tramping around the rose gardens seeking out Draco Malfoy.  
  
Well, that wasn't exactly true. She knew how--she'd volunteered to go find him, and then followed him out into the gardens.  
  
The question she was really asking was why.  
  
But the roses remained silent and inscrutable, and their simple, untainted beauty served only to disgruntle her further as she stomped down the path, muttering angrily.  
  
"I'll do it, SURE I'll do it. I mean, my day was going pretty well, so of course, right, I must volunteer to have a chat with king ferret. Of course. Why don't I just volunteer to have someone perform an entrails-expelling curse on me?"  
  
She wasn't frightened of Malfoy like most people were, but her dislike of him was intense, coupled with the fact that he looked almost exactly like his father, the man who had once tried to kill her. The only difference between the two, was the delicacy in his features, lent him by his mother, which gave him less of a rigid handsomeness and more of a loping grace that in some lights strikingly reminded her of Sirius Black, which made her like him even less. How dare someone as horrid as Malfoy take on the resemblance of Harry's godfather?  
  
Not to mention the fact that leaving Ron alone with Hermione would probably do her brother no good anyway, he had his tongue and his heart tied in knots over the girl. The only time she saw light in his face was when Hermione was around, though, and Ginny would have given her life to make him happy. So, she knew, would Hermione, even though they didn't talk much anymore. No one talked much anymore. Unless it was about Harry, the only thing that everyone could agree on. She wondered if it was difficult to be a beacon of hope.  
  
The quite startling appearance of Malfoy interrupted Ginny's brooding.  
  
He was sitting on a stone bench and facing away from her, his face tipped towards the moonlight as if he were drinking it in. He seemed wholly out of place among the roses, with their soft colors, he was incongruous and entirely too male for this scene. And, she noted with some satisfaction, he looked nothing like an angel, fallen or otherwise, rather more like a tear in a beautiful piece of silk, or a black streak painted haphazardly across the ceiling of the Sistine chapel. Too dark, too solid, too sharp for the ethereal atmosphere of the rose gardens.  
  
She sighed reluctantly. The sooner she got this over with the better. "Malfoy." she said petulantly.  
  
He turned to face her, but as he did, something happened. Everything seemed to flicker in front of her, going out of focus, and sliding back in, but when it did...she wasn't looking at Malfoy sitting on the bench, rather, another boy, in another garden very like the one at Hogwarts, but completely different in a way she couldn't quite explain.  
  
The boy was pale, not quite as pale as Malfoy, with black hair and blacker eyes, rimmed with a soft blue. She knew the face, but not the _expression, and everything had the buzz of unreality about it, as though a very thin veil were covering her senses making it all softer and hazier. The boy wasn't smiling malevolently, smirking, or sneering like she was accustomed to. He looked concerned.  
  
"Is everything all right?" he asked, his voice sounded strange and far away.  
  
Ginny pinched herself hard.  
  
"T-tom?" she stuttered. "What...are...are you...."  
  
Her vision flickered again and she was looking at Malfoy, whose _expression was as baffled as she'd ever seen it. "What are you talking about, Weasley?" he said scathingly.  
  
Ginny rubbed her temples. "Nothing. Hermione wanted me to tell you..."  
  
Malfoy's face blurred and flickered in front of her, like when her father brought home a muggle television set once and spent hours changing channels, the set would flicker for a moment...she closed her eyes, ignoring the stab of pain she felt at the memory of her father. When she opened them again, Tom was standing and moving towards her, his brow furrowed with concern.  
  
"Who's Hermione? Are you sure you're alright?"  
  
"No, I--" Ginny felt very close to tears. "What's happening?" she whimpered.  
  
Tom's face flickered and Malfoy came back into view. He was standing, eyeing her warily as if preparing to run away. "What?" he snapped. "Granger said what? What's wrong with you?"  
  
"Nothing!" she said fiercely, ignoring the pitching, nauseous feeling in her stomach. She swayed slightly and tried to gather her wits. "Hermione said Professor Dumbledore..."  
  
Flicker.  
  
Tom frowned. "Professor Dumbledore? What did he say?"  
  
Ginny stared at him. "Who are you? What's..."  
  
But now it was Malfoy frowning. "Weasley, what ARE you going on about? You look like someone slipped botuber pus in your pumpkin juice, and let me tell you; green is not really your shade."  
  
She glared at him, but realized she really did feel ill...if only the ground would stop moving...  
  
"You look...sick." Tom hedged. "Why don't you sit..." She flumped onto the hard flagstones, "down?"  
  
Malfoy peered down at her. "Are you drunk?"  
  
"No, I just...." she blinked and stared at the ground, ordering it still. "I'm....supposed to tell you..."  
  
She looked up to see Tom's worried face. "Tell me what? Are you feeling all right?"  
  
"Fine." she answered automatically.  
  
"Tell me what?" Malfoy wanted to know.  
  
"Professor Dumbledore--to see you." Ginny gasped.  
  
Tom held out a hand to help her up. "About what?"  
  
Ginny took Malfoy's hand and stood shakily. "You helped me up."  
  
Malfoy raised his eyebrows.  
  
"But...you hate me."  
  
Tom looked hurt. "Of course I don't, what are you talking about? I-"  
  
"-don't think much about you, Weasley." Malfoy sneered.  
  
She glared at him suspiciously and he gave her a wolfish grin. "And after all," Malfoy's lips moved, but Tom's voice came out, and Tom's eyes looked at her. "I am a gentleman."  
  
Ginny snatched her hand away from him and clapped it over her mouth to stop herself from screaming. She backed away quickly, gasping out "Fizzing Whizbees," before turning and running full tilt back to the castle.  
  
Draco stared after her, frowning.  
  
"Fizzing Whizbees?"  
  
____________________________________________________________________________ _____  
  
Next Chapter: Blaise is broody, Harry has a bad dream, and in case you were wondering about Ginny's hallucinations...well, in that case you're out of luck, actually. 


	3. Chapter Two: The Secret Keeper

Blaise sat alone on the hard flagstones of the common room floor, staring bleakly into the fire. She felt numb. The Bloody Baron had to lead her out of Dumbledore's office, and even then she'd barely been able to mutter the password...everything had a faint tinge of unreality. In her hand she held an envelope so aged that the ink had faded until it was barely legible, but she could make out her name. Written in her handwriting. She didn't look at it, though; she couldn't....considering everything else the headmaster had told her. She wanted to sleep, but it didn't seem to be an option. Shivering a little, she pulled her blanket more tightly around her shoulders...  
  
********  
  
Her father was gripping her tightly by the shoulders, whispering to keep still and very, very quiet. Overhead they could hear the Aurors breaking down the door. The crack that pierced the air made Blaise wince and she pressed herself closer to the damp wall of the crawlspace, reminding herself not to cry, whatever she did...  
  
Outside, rain was pouring down incessantly; she could hear that, too...the floors must be very thin. This thought somehow struck her as funny, and a smile crept over her face.  
  
Heavy footsteps thunked across the floorboards, shaking down a fine layer of dust. Blaise blinked it out of her eyes and stared at her hands, ordering them to stop shaking, but no part of her seemed able to stay still, she was trembling from head to toe.  
  
Don't find us, she prayed silently, just leave, please, just leave... The chamber under the drawing room floor had once been used for potions, and an acrid smell still hung faintly in the air. Blaise held her breath. She did not need one more reason to throw up.  
  
"Where are they?" A man's voice said impatiently.  
  
"Damned if I know." Another Auror's voice, a woman this time, replied. "Hiding--like all the rest. Blood cowards this lot, without Lord...You-know- who around to watch their backs."  
  
"Well come on, we'll check upstairs again."  
  
The footsteps moved away, but Blaise didn't dare breathe a sigh of relief, not yet...  
  
********  
  
The sound of stone scraping against stone shook her out of her reverie.  
  
Draco Malfoy shuffled in, looking perplexed. Blaise offered him a wan smile. "Malfoy." She said.  
  
"Zabini." He greeted her absently, then stopped and frowned at her as if he was going to ask her something, changed his mind, and continued to his dormitory.  
  
She turned her gaze back to the fire. How Dumbledore had known...it just didn't male any sense at all. And the letter....she swallowed against the lump rising in her throat, her eyes beginning to prickle traitorously.  
  
***********  
  
"Blaise, listen to me." her father whispered. "Listen carefully. I need to tell you something. There's a book--"  
  
Her eyes widened incredulously. "A BOOK?" she hissed. "A book. Right. A book. Let's have a literary chat, daddy. Shall I get the tea?" She knew she sounded hysterical, and didn't care.  
  
"This is important, Blaise." he said gravely. She sighed and nodded. "There is a book. It's called..." he hesitated. "It's called the Necrominicon. And it's in the possession of a woman. The woman's name is Shaw. Domenica Shaw. It's a powerful text, Blaise, it holds he secrets of life and death."  
  
"Necromancy." she clarified. "But that's...so..." she daren't say 'illegal', lest the forces of irony wreak havoc on her. Illegal indeed. "Why are you telling me this?" she amended.  
  
"Because." Her father sighed. "The Aurors...will find me. And I can't go to Azkaban, Blaise, I won't. But I can fight--and I can take a few of them with me."  
  
She closed her eyes. "What are you saying?"  
  
"Blaise, I'm saying that I'm going to d-"  
  
"No!" she whimpered. "No, no, no, no, no, no....you can't leave me...alone here. With them. With...where will...but...no..." she sobbed quietly.  
  
"Blaise, the book-"  
  
"I don't want to hear about a bloody BOOK!" she wept.  
  
"No, you must, you must listen. Listen to me, Blaise."  
  
She glared at him, but silenced herself. She was, after all, a Slytherin.  
  
*********  
  
"Blaise, you all right?"  
  
She blinked and looked up. Millicent Bullstrode was standing behind one of the high-backed chairs with a look of concern on her face.  
  
"Yeah, Millie. Fine. Tired, you know." She sighed. "Why aren't you at the feast?"  
  
Millicent shrugged. "Everyone glaring at us. Gets a bit tiring. I mean, I even wish bloody Potter would show up. He's not here, you know. Not like he even has to come back, I mean they treat him like some sort of god, anyway. Makes me sick."  
  
"Yeah." Blaise agreed absently. "Yeah, he's a real..." What Harry was, exactly, Blaise was spared from articulating, because Millicent snarled fiercely and began to tirade about him. Blaise caught snatches of it-- "wanker", "tosser", "poor little Potty", "fan club," but she wasn't really listening. When Millicent said goodnight, she parroted the words back--half wondering why she was saying them, and turned back to the fire burning in the ornate hearth.  
  
**********  
  
"The Necrominicon is a book that holds the secrets of resurrection, and the places where the ceremonies can take place. Blaise, your grandfather and four others found this book, and with it....they did a number of great things. The book...was cursed. Upon it is the blood curse of a dying witch by the name of Katherine Black. Now listen,"  
  
Blaise felt a wave of dread wash over her as his words and their subsequent meaning sunk in. Why! She screamed silently. Why, why, why? I don't care, I don't want to know, don't tell me any more....  
  
"Blaise, the Zabinis' have kept this information safe since that time. Protected it from the world, and protected the world from it. That's your responsibility now--" he smiled proudly. "You are the secret-keeper."  
  
She looked into his eyes, mirror images of her own only more sleep deprived. "Why did you tell me?" she whispered weakly "I can't--I don't-- how could they--" She felt as though she really wasn't living up to her title as a Slytherin.  
  
***********  
  
A sound cut into the painful scene playing in her mind and she glanced around, almost surprised to see the other students arriving back from the feast. The first years were standing very close together, looking petrified. The older students merely looked disgruntled. A few of them nodded at her, and she was pretty sure she nodded back. But this all seemed very unimportant...  
  
"This...will only take a moment--" her father put his wand to his temple and intoned in an eerie voice, "Mei relictus abeo". When he took it away, the tip was shining with a strange, cloudy light. He tapped the wand to her temple and she felt a wave of cold pass over her. She shivered.  
  
***********  
  
"It's all right now." he said soothingly.  
  
"No." she protested.  
  
"They'll find us soon. I've done magic." he sounded dazed. "You'll be all right, Blaise, you haven't done anything--yes, you'll be fine, darling."  
  
"No." she said again, without much conviction. "I'll...I'll stop them. I'm almost 17 now, and I...I can stop...them..."she trailed off feebly, knowing how ridiculous that sounded.  
  
"You have to live." her father said in a would-be stern voice. "To pass on our legacy to your children."  
  
"And if I never marry?"  
  
He smiled. "I very much doubt that."  
  
"If you let yourself be killed, I'll never marry; just to spite your memory."  
  
"I very much doubt that as well. Would you rather I went to Azkaban?"  
  
"I'd come visit you."  
  
"How utterly bleak." He laughed, and there was a strange light in his eyes. Blaise would remember this light as calming, but later she mused it was probably just the touch of madness that ran in her bloodline. All pure- bloods had it.  
  
"Here!" a voice said from directly over them.  
  
There were shouts and the floorboards burst apart.  
  
Her father was ready. "Avada Kedavra!" he rumbled, aiming for the nearest Aurors. "Avada Kedavra!" Two fell to the ground. Blaise screamed and scrambled back.  
  
"There's a girl down there! A kid! And he killed Clayborne and Warner, the miserable fuck!"  
  
"Don't hit the girl!"  
  
There were several more flashes of light--red, green...they melded together horrifyingly in a menagerie of demented, spinning colors. And her head...whatever being the secret-keeper entailed, that spell made her head hurt so terribly...  
  
The room was spinning faster and faster, and she whimpered, curling more tightly into herself. It was probably only minutes, but what felt like years later, it was over--and her father lay dead. His eyes were still open, staring blankly ahead.  
  
She clutched at her stomach and stood shakily, clutching the wall for support, though it didn't offer much.  
  
One of the Aurors jumped down, and leaned over, looking closely at her father. He made a signal to the ones waiting above, and then turned to Blaise. "I'm sorry we scared you," he said gently. She vomited.  
  
He wrinkled his nose, but laughed a little. "Can't say you're the first."  
  
Something about that laugh made her snap. How could he laugh? Her entire world being chipped away piece by piece and he laughed. "The first WHAT?!" she shrieked at him, taking vindictive pleasure in his shocked _expression. "You make a habit of KILLING PEOPLE IN FRONT OF THEIR CHILDREN? What kind of monsters are you?" Her rage was tangible, electrifying the air. "Get out of my house! Out! OUT! OUT!" She gave a great shuddering gasp and leapt at him, pummeling her fists against his chest, knocking him to the floor, probably only because she had surprised him, but that didn't matter. "Bastards! I HATE YOU!! Filthy blood-traitors! Get out, get out, get OUT! I hate you! You..." her anger was slowly ebbing, draining away and leaving behind it only a vague sense of weariness. She stood up, getting off the rather startled Auror and brushing herself off. She looked up at his partners who had their wands trained on her, their faces half amused, half afraid.  
  
"Help me out." she said blearily. They held out their hands and pulled her up, back into the soft light of the drawing room where everything was smooth and soft, and made her terror seem very far away.  
  
They lifted her father's body out, and she closed her eyes and turned her face away. They would take no more from her, and she wouldn't ask to keep the body. That was sentimental foolishness.  
  
"A squad will be here in moments to empty the premises of dark objects. If you try to run, or leave the premises, a warrant will be issued and when apprehended you will face the Wizengamot," the female Auror said. The speech was apparently practiced, but Blaise nodded anyway, still not looking at them.  
  
"The Wizengamot is feeling particularly unfriendly these days, Ms. Zabini," the Auror she had attacked said kindly.  
  
"I won't go anywhere." she affirmed coldly. "And I have no use for dark magic."  
  
Their footsteps moved away, and she heard one mutter, "Better than the Malfoy kid," before the door closed and she sank to the floor, shaking with the force of her sobs.  
  
************  
  
"Blaise?"  
  
Blaise started. Pansy Parkinson had taken a seat in one of the chair adjacent to her. "Ummhmm?" she murmured.  
  
"You look really tired." Pansy said quietly.  
  
Blaise nodded. Pansy herself looked pretty beaten up. Her eyes were red and her lip trembled a little.  
  
"I am really tired." Blaise agreed. "I think...I'll just go to bed."  
  
"Yeah. Yeah, me too."  
  
They rose, and Blaise tucked the letter into her pocket before following Pansy to the dormitory. Neither of them mentioned the other's tears, neither of them betrayed their secrets to the other.  
  
They were Slytherins, after all.  
  
____________________________________________________________________________ _____  
  
"It didn't work."  
  
"Give it time, it's a complicated spell, not Wingardium Leviosa, oh, but if I remember correctly, that pesky charm gave you a turn..."  
  
"Silence."  
  
"Sorry, my lord."  
  
"It was the boy."  
  
"Yes. He's like an anchor. It's...disturbing, actually. I believe he's part of the circle."  
  
"Malfoy. Well, it's not unexpected."  
  
"Nevertheless, a connection has not been formed. We're safe."  
  
"But the connection will be formed, isn't that what was foretold? It will come to pass, no matter what we do."  
  
"Fine. In the meantime, we can weaken the bonds so that they'll be easier to break."  
  
"How passé. That won't work. It never works."  
  
"This from the evil being that used a goblet of fire, a hedge maze, a spy, and a portkey, and still failed to kill a 14-year-old boy. Tell me what works, then."  
  
"What works is the plan. And the Weasley girl will have no power against it."  
  
"But she resisted it..."  
  
"Yes, with the same force that will trap her in the end."  
  
"And what's that?"  
  
"Her heart."  
  
____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
He's in a church.  
  
Staring unblinkingly at the floor as he kneels in front of the altar, studying the patterns the stained glass windows make on the floor.  
  
"People are like stained glass windows;" he opines. "they sparkle...when the sun is out, but in the darkness their true beauty is revealed only if there is light within."  
  
"That's beautiful, Potter." A cold, drawling voice replies sarcastically.  
  
Harry looks up at Draco Malfoy, whose already pale skin looks even paler against the dark wood of the cross. Blood is running in thick rivulets from the wounds in his hands and feet, spilling across the floor and staining Harry's robes and hands red.  
  
"You forgot one thing though--" Malfoy continues. "Be careful...when you try to break them with your bare hands. They cut."  
  
"Blood." Harry nods. "You would know all about that, Malfoy."  
  
"Yeah." Malfoy agrees. "Pureblood. Mudblood. It's all the same. I don't know what it means, though."  
  
Harry smiles a little. "You wouldn't be saying this if I were awake."  
  
"I very much doubt we'd be having this conversation if you were awake, Potter." Malfoy looks down at himself, ribs stretching at their case of paper thin flesh, streaked red and white against the dark ebony of the cross. "And while we're on the subject, why are you having a dream about talking to me? Other people dream about flying. Or winning the lottery. You dream about having a chat. You suck, Potter, you really do." He paused. "And besides, I think at this point, I should be dead." He paused again. "I've lost too much...blood."  
  
Harry stumbles to his feet. "Let me help you down."  
  
"No, it's okay." Malfoy looks down at him, unconcerned. "You can see everything from up here; it's quite comfortable, actually. Especially for people like you and me."  
  
Harry doesn't know what to say to this, so he looks back at the deep wounds in his enemy's hands and feet. "It's a mess, isn't it?" he says quietly.  
  
Draco looks at him again. "Not my mess, Harry," he whispers. "The blood is on your hands now."  
  
"Did I kill you?" Harry asks, looking at his hands--they're covered in pungent, red, sticky blood. He tries to wipe them on his robes, but they've been ruined too.  
  
"Not me." He hears Draco say distantly. "You broke them, Harry. It's not my blood."  
  
His head snaps back up, but it's not Malfoy on the cross, it's Sirius, and with a cry of surprise and dismay, Harry rushes forward to help him down. Sirius lies limply in Harry's arms, his breathing ragged, and Harry is annoyed to find that he's crying. Sirius's sunken eyes look sadder than ever.  
  
"Will you be able to choose, when the time comes?" he asks. "You couldn't save any of us, Harry, what makes you think you can save them?"  
  
"I don't want to save anyone." Harry protests feebly, but Sirius interrupts.  
  
"The hero never gets what he wants, Harry. Even when he wins. In the end," Sirius began to weep too, "It won't be you."  
  
"What do you mean it won't be me?" Harry demands. "What's that supposed to-- " But Sirius turns into Ginny Weasley and she's smiling at him, though still bleeding profusely. With a cry, Harry jumps back. Her head cracks against the floor, but she sits up, unfazed.  
  
"You," she says, measuring each syllable. "Are creepy."  
  
Harry frowns and slumps into one of the pews, kicking his feet up on the back of the one in front of him. "I'm...creepy." He isn't enjoying this dream very much. Wants to wake up.  
  
"The creepiness that is you, Harry, has no scale upon which to weigh itself, because the scale always breaks." she smiles wanly. "Under the weight of your creepiness."  
  
She winks at him.  
  
"Huh." And I'm the creepy one? He stands and turns away from her, fully intending to walk out of the church, but Ron and Hermione are blocking his way. "I'm sorry," he says. "I didn't know what would happen."  
  
"It's okay." Ron shrugs. "We'll just blame it on Fred and George."  
  
Hermione tuts reprovingly. "If that isn't the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard..."  
  
Harry blinks, and they're gone. Confused, he moves to leave the church again, but the walls begin to shake, and all the stained glass windows, bearing patterns of the faces of his friends and family shatter and fly inward, the razor sharp shards speeding towards him. He looks around desperately for somewhere to hide, but instead sees a girl. A pretty dark haired girl, vaguely familiar.  
  
"What do they want?" he demands.  
  
"Blood." she answers calmly. "It's always got to be blood, Harry."  
  
And the shards tear into his skin, ripping deep into the flesh...  
  
*** "OW!" Harry sat bolt upright in bed, arms flying up in front of his face protectively. "Ow, ow, ow...jeez...fu-OW!! Stop, stop, I'm awake!"  
  
The owl that had been clawing at him ruffled its feathers in a dignified manner.  
  
"Letter?" he groaned, rubbing his face sleepily. The owl held out its leg and Harry took it, simultaneously reaching for his glasses. He pushed them up the bridge of his nose and squinted at the letter as he unrolled it. There was only one line, and it read:  
  
* With the lycans comes the birth of the circle. *  
  
_______________________________________________________________________  
  
Next Chapter: Ginny and Draco get up close and...er...violent, the dramatic violins of What Happened in Dumbledore's Office are front and center, and Tom Riddle is back and fluffier than ever. 


	4. Chapter Three: Unearthed

Ginny Weasley was not having a good day. The redhead hadn't slept well the night before--she'd lain awake all night with a blinding pain in her head, and every rustle of every sheet, every barely audible snore made her start awake, just as she started to doze.  
  
She'd never been more terrified in her life as when Tom had...well, she didn't know what had happened. She didn't even know if it *had* happened. At least with Lord Voldemort, she knew she was dealing with someone real. Real people had limited capabilities. Imaginary ones were far more dangerous. Especially this new version of Tom--she was quite used to seeing him now; taunting her, goading her. He could make her feel every shade of misery, every nuance of pain....pain she could handle, misery she was used to. But in the garden...she'd been terrifyingly reminded of the Tom Riddle she'd confided her secrets to in a diary so many years ago. *Tell me your secrets, Ginny. I'm the only one who really understands you...*  
  
He had been kind, thoughtful, and concerned for her well being. And his eyes...had been so earnest. As far as Ginny was concerned, it all only meant one thing. She was doomed.  
  
It had frightened her so badly she'd almost told Ron, Harry, and Hermione. But one look at their faces and she knew she never could. How could she even think of putting them through another bout of her nonsense? And how foolish would she feel if it really was her imagination? Which it was, of course. Although...he had touched her. Corporeal things can't touch, much less help someone up. No, she thought, that was Malfoy. Which, albeit, wasn't a huge improvement, but at least she knew Malfoy was real.*Or is he?* A little voice whispered in the back of her mind. *How can you know what's real anymore?*  
  
Ginny shivered. Sometimes she felt like this and started herself thinking about things that she never wanted to think about. It made her feel as though she was standing on the edge of reason, and one good shove would send her careening into insanity.  
  
She had dozed off, finally, as the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon, and she slept for several fitful hours before her inner clock had woken her quite abruptly, causing her to fall out of bed and smack her head on--efficiently and in succession--her bedpost, her bedside table, and the floor, which hadn't improved her headache. It had been a full five minutes before she could even attempt to stand up without nauseating pain, and it had taken her a full twenty to get dressed, another 30 to get in and out of the bathroom to brush her teeth, longer than that to get everything she need for classes out of her trunk (causing her to miss breakfast) which had actually been reduced to grabbing every single book and haphazardly stuffing some ink bottles and quills into her bag (balanced daintily on her wrist--well, it looked dainty, though it felt quite horrid and made her wrist ache something awful) before dashing out.  
  
Despite her efforts, all of this had conspired to make her very, very late for her first class of the day, which was also unfortunately Potions with Professor Snape. The tally for the day was Bad Luck: 10, Ginny Weasley: 0 and she was less than pleased.  
  
Ginny fought with all of the things she was trying to carry at once--books, bag, quill, ink bottles, and it didn't seem that anything wanted to cooperate. "Surprise, surprise," she muttered bitterly. She wasn't even sure why she was bothering--Professor Snape was going to turn her into a vegetable and eat her in a salad anyway, although death by digestion sounded almost a peaceful end compared to her morning.  
  
Her wrist now felt as though it was going to fall off, and she realized that the smart thing to do would be to stop and transfer a few of her books into her bag. But the smart thing was not the quick thing, and the heavy books piled in her arms looked as though they might not be amenable to the idea.  
  
Her head felt like it was going to explode, as her legs struggled toward the dungeons, and she peered cautiously around her book tower, hoping that Peeves was far, far away. Then again, why waste a perfectly miserable day with a bit of luck?  
  
Snape, she thought, would turn her into a rat and test potions on her. Or a weasel. The Slytherins would find that amusing, anyway. Although it would be a bit rich of them--being home to Malfoy, the amazing bouncing ferret themselves. The memory made her giggle, and the book tower wobbled menacingly. "Singing always gets the job done faster," she murmured absently to herself. "Just ask the seven dwarves. Stupid, really. Everyone knows dwarves don't really look like that. Or whistle. It's too bad that I don't know how to whistle though. I guess I could just talk to myself as I walk, but then someone might come along and think I'm in serious need of help. How dire." She sighed woefully. The top book, a battered copy of A History of Magic, slid precariously to the side. "Ohooops." she fretted, "then again, they might carry my books. Oh wait, no, that would be lucky. Nevermind. I could enchant them to float...if I could reach my wand. Of course, Filch would come along right quick. Oh what does it matter anyway? I'm going to be lettuce in a few min-"  
  
Her rant was interrupted by something rounding the corner of the hallway she was passing and slamming into her full force. The precarious book tower, her bag, and herself landed smack on the floor, and the person who had knocked her down kept walking as though they had noticed nothing. Ginny felt a sharp pain digging into her hand and saw with dismay that her ink bottles had broken--a shard of glass had embedded itself into her palm.  
  
Her temper flared as her eye caught a flash of gilt, and she scrambled to her feet. Bad Luck marked another two pointer and cackled evilly. "Hey-hey! Malfoy!"  
  
He turned around slowly and she saw that he was laughing almost to the point of hysterics. "You think it's funny just running people down, do you?" she demanded angrily as another flash of pain threatened to split her head in half.  
  
He smirked. "Whenever I see you, Weasley, you always seem to be on the ground. Are you trying to tell me something?"  
  
"Ha.Ha.Ha. I am so amused. Do you see me laughing?" she raged. If she had to vent her morning on someone, Malfoy was as good a choice as any.  
  
"You have no sense of humor. Not my problem." he shrugged elegantly and moved as if to turn away, but she angled herself in front of him, still spewing.  
  
"The least you could do is apologize!"  
  
He crossed his arms, looking bored. "Apologize for what? For you having so much rubbish in your arms that you couldn't see? Apologize for you not watching where you're going?"  
  
"No, apologize for running me down like some crazy-"  
  
He stiffened and slowly turned his head to look her straight in the eye. Under other circumstances, she might have said his eyes were unusual, or even quite beautiful. But now they were dark with a fiery rage that was so hot in its intensity that she felt scorched. They were so hateful that she took an involuntary step back.  
  
"I. Am. Not. Crazy." he said quietly, measuring each syllable carefully. "Do you understand me?" The mocking laughter was gone from his voice. She would have preferred it.  
  
Ginny bit her lip, and for the first time took note of the lean strength of his body, the strong cut of his muscles and realized that he could overpower her easily. He wasn't that much taller than her though, and she was thoroughly tired of being intimidated. She straightened to her full height.  
  
"It's called human decency." She said coolly, reaching for her wand, which was securely in her back pocket. "Although I don't know why I expected that from you. You're just like your father. Pureblood madness and bigotry, evil wanking bastards with no sense of wrong or right, you think you're so much better than everyone else Draco Malfoy, but you're a pathetic bully and a-"  
  
Before she knew what was happening he'd grabbed her wrists, twisting her arms painfully behind her back, she cried out and he let go, but only to grab her by the shoulders and shove her roughly against the nearest wall.  
  
"Don't-you-ever-talk-about-my-father!" Each word was punctuated by a hard shake.  
  
Draco had no idea what he was doing. He only knew that the little weasel and her accusing glare made him angrier than he'd been in a long time. Angry enough to break the surface of his carefully constructed control. It didn't matter anymore, anyway...  
  
******  
  
All the lights in the room were out. The only sound was the rain pounding incessantly on the roof and beating against the windows. The thick velvet curtains were drawn, and Draco could just barely see his father's outline though he was standing mere inches from him.  
  
"They're coming, aren't they?" he queried, though it was not really a question.  
  
Lucius didn't say anything, only turned away from his son. "There are things you need to know before I die." he said slowly. "I haven't time to tell you everything. Doubtless I could have told you before, but... no, it's time now. To tell you about your true destiny."  
  
"My...destiny?" Nutters. Draco thought. Completely fucking off his rocker.  
  
"Yes. If you fulfill your part, my death shall not be final. The Dark Lord will reward me. He will make me immortal."  
  
Hoo, boy. "The Dark Lord is on the deader side of things these days, father. He's not exactly in a position to immortalize every Tom, Dick and..." Draco felt a smile tugging at his lips. "Harry."  
  
Lucius whirled on his son. "DO NOT SPEAK THAT NAME!" he hissed. "The Dark Lord-" his eyes took on a strange glint, "will rise. And he will bring his faithful with him. We SHALL be immortal."  
  
Draco raised his eyebrows. "You could run." he suggested calmly. "Like mum. Or hide. I'll tell them you've gone out for a bite and a cuppa."  
  
Lucius didn't laugh. He was not a man who laughed when he was amused. Cackle evilly, yes, laughed, no. But he was clearly not amused now. "I will not betray the dark lord!" he cried, grabbing his son by the shoulders. "I shall not repeat my mistakes...no, listen carefully--" Lucius paused for breath. Spittle was gathering on his lips, giving him the look of a mad dog. "You, my boy, have a greater destiny, yes, a responsibility to the darkness. When the circle is formed...you will lead them." He smiled beatifically, as if everything was clear.  
  
"I have a what? Look," Draco felt unfamiliar panic rising in his throat and did not like the taste. "I don't HAVE-"  
  
"No, no." Lucius shushed him. "You have a grand destiny. To bring about a new age. A dark age that not even Dumbledore or that fool Potter boy will be able to stop. They will not see..." Lucius trailed off, his eyes shining.  
  
"Look," Draco said. "Let's just get you out of here, right?" he put his arm around his father and felt a surge of emotions. Shock, at how frail Lucius felt, anger at the people who had brought him to this, and intense pride, that he could be strong when his father could not.  
  
"No! NO!" Lucius cried. Somewhere, there was the shattering sound of a window being broken.  
  
"Dad, come on." Draco urged. "We'll just-"  
  
"No!" Lucius said again. "No, quick...before they find us--you've got to kill me!"  
  
******  
  
Anger was thrumming through his veins like a drug as he slammed her against the wall. Draco wasn't prone to physical force--he'd always been taught that it was common and repugnant, but at the moment, he didn't much care. All he knew was that...he wanted to hurt her. Stronger than any emotion he'd ever felt he wanted to cause her pain. He wanted to hurt her so badly that she would never look him in they eye again, never dare to speak his father's name, never insult his family ever, ever again. The desire to crush her was overwhelming, just because...he could. He wanted to break her from the inside out, wanted to make her feel every bit of pain that he felt...if only he could siphon some of his anguish into her, maybe he'd feel some peace.  
  
*He's going to kill me.* Ginny thought distantly, watching the emotions play out on Draco's face. She felt strangely elevated, as if watching the scene play out from somewhere far, far away. Yet at the same time, every blow was another sharp spike of pain down her spine. She could hardly stand, much less fight him off. Her head cracked against the stone and stars exploded behind her eyes, she drew breath to scream, and felt his fingers crash against her larynx. She choked, blinking away tears. Blood from her palm was dripping slowly onto his shoe, and she felt a tiny vindictive pleasure in that. He was still screaming at her, but it was incoherent babbling to her, rubbish about his father, about his family, more rubbish about her and her family, nothing she hadn't heard before, but it took on an entirely new meaning now. He *was* insane. He had gone completely nuts. Not that she hadn't suspected that, but... *I wish,* she said silently, *that Peeves would come along. Or Filch. Or even Snape.* But the students and the teachers were in class, peacefully learning how to turn each other into kittens or something, and not knowing or much caring that their numbers would be one less in a minute. There were no portraits nearby, no suits of armor...no one to help her. *I WOULD choose the only deserted hallway in the castle to pick a fight with a loony.* She struggled feebly, but really, she was almost too tired to care. A tiny part of her even hoped that he *would* kill her. Before she brought down another catastrophe on the ones she loved. *You ARE Tom,* she thought. *In a small way, you are. You have the power to wound me. But you won't break me; I can do that fine all by myself. Why break what's already broken, King Ferret?* The degrading moniker made her feel an ounce better, but since he was still slamming her against a stone wall, her satisfaction was short lived.  
  
"My-father-was-ten-times-the-man-your-father-ever-was!" A crack told her she'd just broken something and judging by the spreading pain in her arm, she judged that to be the break. "He believed in what he stood for!" Draco's voice quavered shamefully, he would not do this, he would not let himself remember, not in front of a nosy, goody two-shoes chit like Ginny Weasley...but the logic of his mind didn't seem to penetrate the fury in his blood.  
  
******  
  
"What?! No, you're crazy. You don't know what you're saying." Draco felt very old, and yet like a little boy. A frightened little boy. Fear. An emotion he was less than comfortable with. Draco didn't fear. Others feared him.  
  
"It is written!" Lucius hissed. "And it is your responsibility!"  
  
"Why do you keep saying that?" Draco demanded furiously. "My responsibility?"  
  
"You will know." Lucius cackled. "When it is time. All will be made clear. But not NOW, boy, there's no time now, quick!" He snatched Draco's wand up from where it lay on the table and thrust it into his hand. "Quickly!" Lucius babbled.  
  
The crashes were getting closer.  
  
He heard the bones in her arm snap and felt a fierce rush of...perhaps it was contentment. Her eyes had gone blank and flat, staring at something far away, perhaps something that wasn't even there.  
  
"It is your responsibility to bring forth the dark! This is the first step! Quickly now, quickly. Immortality waits for no man..."  
  
"No!" Draco snapped. "No I absolutely won't." His father was incapacitated, he thought glumly. Is that my future? Madness? "It wouldn't work anyway," he reasoned, flinching at an especially loud bang. "I don't want to kill you. I don't even hate you."  
  
Lucius's jaw slackened, and for a moment he looked worried, as though a trace of the old Lucius were creeping his way in. Draco felt heartened, but then the glint returned. "Why not? I've always hated you, boy. Weakling that you are. You were a disappointment from the start. Colicky as a baby- had to put silencing charms on you--such a spoiled child. Concerned more with brooms and bloody boyhood grudges. Never could see the bigger picture. Pathetic, toadying, scum sucking little bastard. There were nights I prayed your mother had died in childbirth and it was all a terrible dream..."  
  
Draco's mouth felt like sandpaper. He laughed hollowly. "Good show, Father. Make me hate you. Congratulations, rah-rah...all that-" There was another deafening bang, followed by shouts of 'In here!'  
  
Lucius's eyes gleamed with resentment and fear. He grabbed Draco's wrist, forcing the wand tip to his heart. "SAY IT!" he screamed. "Say it now! NOW! YOU MUST!" His cheeks were stained dark red, his eyes were fairly rolling. "Say it now!" he screamed again, agonized. "Your responsibility to the dark! You must! You must!"  
  
"No." Draco said, quietly, fearfully. His father was so very close he could smell the liquor on his breath. Only the wand was between them. His insides felt as if they were imploding organ by organ. Every muscle was frozen, taut with fear.  
  
The door was blasted open.  
  
"SAY IT!" Lucius screamed. Draco stared at him in mute horror. Everything was moving in excruciating slow motion. He saw the Aurors spring towards them, saw their lips moving, forming the word 'Accio'...  
  
Lucius's face was contorted in horror, and then suddenly smoothed into a look of blissful triumph as he screamed "AVADA KEDAVRA!" Green light burst from the tip of Draco's wand and his father's body fell to the floor. He was dead.  
  
Draco's hand slackened, the wand fell to the ground, clattering. The sound of it echoed hollowly in his head. His father was dead. But he couldn't be. He'd been alive just a moment ago; perhaps it was all some sort of terrible joke...  
  
He'd always been told he looked just like his father, just like Lucius, the spitting image, and yes, he could see it. The same aristocratic features, the same eyes, the same smile, the identical veiled expression, but now...but now...he could see why it made such an impression on people, and for one instant, he saw the dead man, but it wasn't his father, it was him...he was looking into the eyes of his own corpse and the sound of the wand clattering onto the polished wood floor echoed horribly, a moment captured in that sound, eternally...  
  
******  
  
Draco's anger was pounding in his ears. "He was honorable. He stood by what he believed, he-"  
  
At these words, something inside Ginny snapped. "Don't you dare!" she screamed with as much rage as she could muster. "Don't. You. DARE." her voice was laced with hatred. "He was disgusting, and you're disgusting!" she felt her anger rising, giving her strength she didn't really have, and she brought her knee sharply up into his groin. His gasped and staggered back slightly, wincing. "How dare you tell me he was honorable!" she wheezed, gripping the wall for support. "KILLING IS NOT HONORABLE you filthy snob! What you *stand* for," her tone turned mocking. "Is the destruction of good, you never create anything with all your hatred, and I hope you rot in hell!"  
  
He looked at her closely for the first time, fully prepared to make a sniping remark, but one look in her eyes made him stop. Not that her eyes were particularly beautiful, he'd seen better. It was the strength in them that entranced him. He had attacked her, he could have killed her, and probably would have--and she met his eyes full stream. No apologies, no resentment, no disgust. Only a solid connection between her eyes and his. She could see him.  
  
There was a clattering of feet--a crowd was gathering around them. Draco righted himself quickly. "I...I don't know why I did that," he said.  
  
Ginny backed away slowly. "I pity people like you," she replied coolly.  
  
She looked pretty pitiful herself. Her pupils were dilating, her hand was bleeding, her arm was twisted grotesquely, he knew there would be bruises where he'd shoved her, and so he stayed silent. He'd never felt so disgusted with himself. Control was who and what he was. This sudden loss of it chafed him.  
  
"What's going on here?" a voice squeaked. Professor Flitwick pushed his way through the throng of students. "Mr. Malfoy? Ms. Weasley?"  
  
Ginny set her jaw. Her head...her head hurt so much she could barely see. The room was spinning, her arm was too painful to think about... *Thanks ever so much,* she thought bitterly, *for coming to my rescue.*  
  
"Nothing." she bit out. She saw Draco relax, his eyes still trained on hers. She got the most peculiar feeling near her collarbone, a fluttering pressure...then everything went black.  
  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
Blaise gazed unseeingly at the end table in front of her. She was supposed to be turning it into a dog, but she couldn't even muster enough interest in the task to wave her wand feebly at it like Neville Longbottom was doing. Truthfully, she'd been distracted all day, unable to wrench her thoughts away from the letter which was now tucked inside her robes, unopened, and the startling warning that had accompanied it.  
  
****  
  
Blaise dragged her fingers through her rumpled hair and halfheartedly brushed sand out of her clothes, feeling gritty and miserable and confused. Feelings she was neither familiar nor comfortable with.  
  
"Why don't you take a seat, Ms. Zabini?" Dumbledore offered kindly, gesturing to the chair across from his desk. She nodded mutely and almost fell into it. "I think I should explain a few things before I tell you the real reason you are here." Dumbledore continued in a voice that was almost infuriatingly calm.  
  
She nodded again. The "real" reason? Was there a reason besides almost getting killed? Suddenly she felt very tired.  
  
"First," the Professor began, "I'd like to be very clear on the events preceding our meeting."  
  
Blaise swallowed. "Er-I-went to the Hog's Head...to meet someone. And I...well, I guess there was someone else there, trying to-kill me?" her voice squeaked, and she scowled. Slytherins did not squeak.  
  
Dumbledore smiled vaguely. "Do you know why?"  
  
She really didn't understand why the event of her narrowly avoided death was so amusing, but she only shrugged. "Do you?"  
  
Professor Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "I suppose I know more about it than you do." He slid two things across the desk to her, and nodded reassuringly at her hesitant look. "Go ahead."  
  
One was a piece of parchment, a letter by the looks of it, and one was an envelope, still sealed. Both were old and dingy, and she held them by her fingertips, as though they were going to burst into flames at any moment.  
  
"It's all right." Dumbledore assured her.  
  
She looked first at the letter, laying the envelope in her sandy lap. Here eyes flicked over the faded scrawl for a moment, and then she looked back at Dumbledore, her eyes wide. "Is this on the level?" she sputtered incredulously.  
  
"Indeed." the Professor nodded. "For the last 45 years, I've held those letters in my possession. The first one was for me. The second one is for you." Blaise picked up the envelope, tried to open it, and found it was impossible. There was no flap, and the paper wouldn't tear.  
  
"Oh yes," Dumbledore added. "You yourself put a sealing charm on that. It won't open until it's supposed to. By that time, I believe your words were-- "a bloody fair amount of people will be after it"--so I suggest you keep it with you at all times. Don't let anyone know you have it."  
  
Blaise was staring at him rather dumbly. "I...gave it to you?" she sputtered. "55 years ago?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"But...how?"  
  
"Oh, I imagine you traveled back in time."  
  
"But...how?" she immediately felt like a foolish child, but she did want to know the answer.  
  
The headmaster laughed softly. "Well, there are many methods of time travel available, and you chose not to share yours with me. So I don't know."  
  
Blaise nodded again and looked back at the letter:  
  
Dear Professor Dumbledore, Thank you for all your help. By the time you read this letter, you'll know who we are, and maybe you'll know why we've done...well, you know. We need to ask you one more favor. On September first, 1997, Blaise will need your help. You'll find her on a beach, you know where (we can't put it here, in case someone else finds this letter), at one minute past midnight. Please give Blaise the second letter at that time. Thanks Again, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Blaise Zabini, and Draco Malfoy  
  
She looked back up at Professor Dumbledore. "What's all this about?" she demanded. "What's in the letter?"  
  
Dumbledore sighed. "I don't know. You never told me. There are some things we aren't meant to know."  
  
"And what the bloody h-what's this business with Granger and Potter? And what about Draco? We'd never do anything with those two...and they hate us!"  
  
Dumbledore looked highly amused. "I think you'll find your time is better spent making allies than holding grudges."  
  
Blaise had the grace to look chastised. "Is that all then?" she asked.  
  
"No." And now the Professor looked troubled. "There was one other message I'm to leave you. Knowing what I know now, it seems cruel, but-" He paused. "It's about your father."  
  
Blaise stiffened. "Oh?" she said blandly.  
  
"It's...a message from Mr.Potter."  
  
"This should be good," she snorted.  
  
"You, by the way, approved." Dumbledore said with a faint smile.  
  
"Right then."  
  
"It's all connected to what he told you the day of his death. About-" for an instant, Blaise thought she saw a flash of pain on Dumbledore's face, but it was gone so quickly, she was almost sure she'd imagined it, "the Necrominicon. Everything ties back to the Necrominicon."  
  
She felt a flare of anger and hurt at the words....her father was dead. The words that she had worked so hard to ignore echoed in her head. He's dead, he's dead, he's dead...over a bloody stupid book...dead, dead, dead...  
  
She felt slightly ill. "Is that all?" she queried breathlessly. "If you don't mind, I'd like to go back to my dorm."  
  
"Yes, yes of course."  
  
****  
  
A loud rapping sound snapped her back to reality. An owl was outside the window nearest to her, and feeling perplexed, she let it in. It was a large, rather imposing tawny owl with sharp yellow eyes. It held out its leg, and she cautiously took the scroll from it. It was addressed to her. The class was silently watching her, and she unrolled the parchment slowly.  
  
The letter was brief, and, in her opinion, completely bonkers:  
  
Five makes the whole. Alone they will fail.  
  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
For a moment, Ginny had peculiar and terrifying sense that she was floating. Caught between a delicate barrier, standing on the edge of an abyss and looking down into vast nothingness that wanted to open wide and swallow her whole. But in another sense, the abyss was only a small part of her...  
  
Then she opened her eyes, and found that she was in the Hospital wing.  
  
The wing was pitch black in a way it had never been before, the high windows looked bigger and somehow sharper than they ever had. All her senses were heightened, and at the same time dulled. She felt every movement she made was not difficult, but very complex, involving more brain cells than it should. But it didn't explain why everything seemed so...strange. Strange in a way that she couldn't quite explain.  
  
Every fiber of her body screamed as she sat up, and a tingling, prickling pain shot through her as though every part of her had been stabbed with tiny needles all a once.  
  
* What in the hell was that?*  
  
She vaguely remembered talking to Malfoy, she remembered breaking her arm, and then everything had just faded away, flickered, and it was gone, just like the night before in the garden only ten times more intense.  
  
"Madam Pomfrey?" she rasped tentatively.  
  
"Who?" a male voice answered, and a lamp near her bed was flicked on. In the circle of amber light she could see the hands were delicate, slender, and pale; with long graceful fingers that played absently with the owner's shirt cuffs.  
  
A tingle of apprehension crept up her spine, exploding into a jolt of terror as she raised her eyes to look at the boy who had spoken. "Tom?" she said hoarsely. He smiled and sat gracefully on the edge of her bed.  
  
"Feeling better?" he asked, smiling tentatively.  
  
She stared dumbly at him for a moment. Had she gone mad? Corporeal things didn't turn on lights, and she could feel the solid weight his of his body next to her. It was all so..."You're..." she pressed herself as close to the headboard as she could, trembling a little. "Not...real...are you?"  
  
His brow furrowed. "What?"  
  
She whimpered. "Look, I've had a really, really....bad day. So if you could just, shimmer away or whatever. That would be really nice. Right?" she forced herself to breathe. "I'm...dreaming, right...it's not real, I know it's not real, so if I just think about something else, damn I wish I could whistle, okay, okay, thinking about something else. How much I hate Malfoy. No, um, potions, argh, no, it's not real, just keep telling yourself that, it's-"  
  
His hand closed over her mouth, and she immediately felt again as though she were floating, suspended...on one side of the barrier, the touch of his hand made her feel a strange warmth pooling in her gut, and she had a sudden flash of...it couldn't be memory, but in her mind's eye she saw a little boy with a bowl of thin soup and a dirty face...but it faded, and on the other side of the barrier she was screaming with every ounce of energy she had left to get as far away from him as possible.  
  
"You're babbling." he said gently. "And you're in shock." He noted her trembling form. "Are you cold? I'll get you a blanket."  
  
He disappeared behind the screen, and for a moment, Ginny wildly considered jumping out of the bed and fleeing for her life. She could run faster than any boy, and Tom wasn't so powerful. Not physically. Not like-- she gave an involuntary shudder--Malfoy. The memory of his hands digging into her, slamming her against the stone so carelessly, as if she were just a punching bag for his overblown sense of teenage angst...she grimaced. To run, that showed fear. And if Tom knew she was afraid of him, he would destroy her without a second thought, and enjoy every second of it.  
  
She knew, in her core, that he had such a capacity, a hunger for cruelty and for evil...on another level, a level that seemed integral to herself, and yet separate...on the other side of the strange veil over her senses, she felt a warm glow at the thought of him. A secure knowledge that rather than hurt her, he would protect her with his life.  
  
*Wait, WHAT? No no no no...wrong. Where did that come from?*  
  
The feeling was more than disconcerting, and she didn't want to explore it whatsoever. He was being gentle, she reasoned, and besides, her head was still spinning, and her legs felt like lead weights.  
  
*Calm down.* A voice in her mind whispered. *It's safe.*  
  
*Like hell it is.* She replied smarmily, but she stayed put.  
  
Tom reappeared a moment later, his arms piled with blankets. He was smiling hesitantly. "Are you...okay?"  
  
"I'm fine." she answered automatically. I'm going insane, but other than that I'm just peachy, and you? "I've just had...a really weird day."  
  
He tucked a woolen blanket around her shoulders, and lay two more on top of her. "Yeah. That was quite a job, fainting in class. Scared the shit out of me."  
  
Ginny felt her mouth drop open. "In...class."  
  
*It's finally happened. I am COMPLETELY off the deep end.* She thought miserably. And yet...there was a dim memory in the recesses of her brain, she could see the classroom, rather old fashioned, and felt that same fluttering pressure over he collarbones as she collapsed into darkness. Only...that had never happened.  
  
"Oh...I guess you're having trouble remembering. Closed head injury and everything." he looked slightly uncomfortable. "You, uh, said I wasn't real...?"  
  
"I-" *You're not. You're an evil figment of my imagination, and you've finally driven me mad.* "Thought you were someone else."  
  
"Oh." he relaxed a little, but still looked puzzled. "Who did you think I was?"  
  
"I didn't know." she replied.  
  
"I've never seen you look so scared." Tom mumbled. "I...I never want to see you look that frightened again. Not of me. Not ever." His eyes were fixed on the blankets as he plucked nervously at them with those delicate fingers, and Ginny felt the strange, overwhelming urge to hug him.  
  
*NO!* She screamed at her brain. *DO NOT RELAX! This is BAD. And weird. He.Is.EVIL. Evil, not huggable. You don't just go around hugging evil.*  
  
*Aw, come on.* The other, traitorous voice encouraged. *It's Tom. You can trust him. He's your friend, what are you so scared of? *  
  
*He is NOT my friend.* Ginny replied angrily. *Not at all. No. I won't. I refuse, and I'm waking up this instant. I DEMAND to wake up. Now.*  
  
While she'd been conversing with herself, she had hugged him. Awkwardly. Her arms looked different, somehow--shorter, skinnier, and the movement felt jerky, as if she wasn't accustomed to hugging. He started. He wasn't used to being hugged, she supposed.  
  
*Because he's EVIL. Being evil sort of gets in the way of being snuggly*.  
  
*Oh no he's not. You're overreacting.*  
  
A very strange sensation washed over her and she felt suddenly as if she'd been shoved abruptly into a very small, dark room, only the room was in her mind, and there was no key, and she knew with ultimate certainty that she would never, ever get out, and she couldn't see, everything was fuzzy, blurring before her eyes...  
  
Tom nestled his head into the crook between her neck and shoulder, the soft, warm caress of his breath making her skin tingle.  
  
*Making my skin CRAWL, not tingle. Ew.*  
  
*Oh shut up.*  
  
*He's evil.*  
  
*Is not.*  
  
*And he doesn't age well.*  
  
Her hair fell forward, brushing against her cheek as she leaned closer to Tom, who was now gently tracing the curve of her collarbone. It felt familiar and comfortable, but all wrong. This WAS wrong. Not only was it wrong, it was bizarre.  
  
She reached up to tuck her hair back behind her ear--but her fingers froze as the came in contact with the treacherous strands. She grabbed a fistful of hair and jerked it in front of her face, feeling seriously ill. The hair she was clutching was not red, or curly, it was sleek, auburn hair, fine and silky, and not hers.  
  
She felt he same pitching, nauseous feeling she'd felt in the garden, and she jerked away from Tom, who looked up at her, sleepily confused.  
  
*Adorable.* the Voice of Insanity sighed.  
  
*WHAT ?! No!*  
  
"Tom-" she said, her voice trembling between neutral and hysterical. "What- is-going-on?"  
  
She knew that the Tom she knew and despised had never touched her, ever. Because he wasn't real, wasn't corporeal, couldn't touch. But Tom...this Tom, was frighteningly solid. He had stubble. He smelled like sun warmed skin and soap.  
  
"How..." she whispered fearfully. "How did you get here?"  
  
His face flashed with comprehension. "You know Madam Wells....thinks I make the sun rise in the morning, the old bat. She said I could sit with you until you wo-"  
  
"No," she whispered, inching away from him. She suddenly felt very cold. And small. The abyss was widening, and she was teetering on the edge. "How did you get--HERE. You--can't...you can't be...it's...but Harry, he," she paused. "Tom, who's Madam Wells?" Her voice was cracking. "Why is my hair...it's...why are you here? You're not--you can't be...what's happened to the hospital wing?!" Her voice was rising to a hysterical pitch. "You can't be here! You-Harry killed-and you-"  
  
Surely, Ginny thought, surely she was going mad. Tom looked as though she'd slapped him, or indeed as if she were raving.  
  
"What is wrong?" he demanded. "Who's Harry? Your hair--hasn't changed as far as I know---what are you...and the hospital wing? Has been like this since our first day! How can you not know who I am? How can you..." his voice broke, and she thought for a terrifying moment that he was actually going to cry.  
  
"Tom," her voice was barely a whisper. "What...year is it?"  
  
He looked relieved to have a question he could answer. "1944."  
  
The abyss split wide and she fell into it, screaming soundlessly, wordlessly, through a darkness that must be endless, though it did not, she was sure, exist. She was outside. Outside the universe. Outside the realm of sense. Pureblood madness had claimed a Weasley. The end was rushing towards her, the bottom of the abyss--and she fell into it, quite sure she was going to be dashed upon it and shatter into so many pieces she would be picked up by the wind and borne away.  
  
Ginny opened her eyes and shot up in bed, screaming like a banshee, until a cool hand pressed against her forehead. This time she scrambled out of bed without even looking to see who it was. The sheets caught around her ankles, tripping her up, but she kicked them away and kept running--past the rows of beds that she would not look at, out the swinging door, down the corridor. She did not know where she was going.  
  
The entire thing was ridiculous. 1944. Rubbish. She had been dreaming. None of it made any logical sense, and so it wasn't real. She would keep running until it wasn't. Until Tom's strangely familiar caress had been burned from her memory. How should she dream of that touch? No one had ever done that to her, ever. She ran harder and faster, her bare feet slapping the stones brutally. She could feel the eyes of the portraits watching her, and hear the suits of armor turning their heads to look at her, but she didn't stop.  
  
She wasn't exactly sure how long she ran, but it was only when a pair of slender arms grabbed her that she stilled. For a fraction of a second.  
  
"Get away!" she shrieked, thrashing wildly. "Don't--get--stop!"  
  
"Ginny!" a feminine voice cried worriedly, and it was a moment before she recognized the voice as Hermione's.  
  
Tears sprang into her eyes and she clutched at the older girl, whose arms encircled her hesitantly. "Ginny, what's wrong? I thought you were supposed to be in the hospital wing...what are you doing out so late?"  
  
1997. Not 1952. Hermione. Real, solid, sure, and safe. Not Tom. Reality. No Malfoy with hateful eyes, no Tom with deceptive gentleness. Ginny wept with relief, thankful, blissful relief.  
  
"What happened?" Hermione asked softly.  
  
Ginny opened her mouth, and saw in her mind's eye--Hermione, frozen from the basilisk's stare, Hermione, limp and lifeless after being attacked by a death eater in the Department of Mysteries, Hermione knitting caps for house elves, arguing with Ron, advising the boys on girl trouble, and last night, free and happy and laughing with Harry and Ron. And so, although Hermione questioned her again as she rocked the younger girl in her arms, Ginny could not speak. 


	5. Chapter Four: Pureblood

Hey! Can you believe it? No, I can't either. It's another chapter! Yeah, anyway, I'm really sorry for being so slow about updating, but my life has been insane lately; I promise to keep up for the time being. Thanks to everyone who reviewed the other chappies of this story I hope you keep coming back for more.  
  
Disclaimer: Though I write at the same pace as our beloved JK, alas, I am not she.  
  
__________________________________________________________________________  
  
The next morning was mild and sunny, and the cloudless sky achingly blue as Harry, Ron, and Hermione made their way across the grounds for their first class, Care of Magical Creatures.  
  
"Madame Pomfrey was in hysterics," Hermione said in low tones, recounting the events of the previous day. "She said she'd never had a student react like that to any medication. Ginny said she was having a nightmare."  
  
"Wouldn't anyone after a run-in with Malfoy? I heard she went mental on him and then conked out--mind you she didn't say a word of this to me; I had to hear it from Padma Patil--" Ron interjected. "I think he did something to her," he continued darkly. "Ginny isn't the fainting type." He paused, and then added thoughtfully, "You know, I really didn't need a reason to kill Malfoy, but it was sweet of him to give me one."  
  
Hermione tutted. "Oh, Ron," she sighed. "Leave him be. He's caused enough trouble for himself already; I doubt you could do him worse."  
  
"No," Ron agreed. "But I could try, right Harry?"  
  
Harry, who had been silently contemplating the ground during this exchange looked up, a blank _expression on his face. "Right." he said absently. "Exactly. Yeah."  
  
"Charlie asked me to look after her especially this year." Ron continued. "Didn't say why. Of course, she has been a little touch and go ever since-- "  
  
Ron trailed off, and neither he nor Hermione, looked at Harry, who didn't seem to notice. He was staring into the distance. "What the bloody hell--" he murmured, squinting at the horizon.  
  
Ron and Hermione followed his gaze. The class was huddled by the edge of the lake, and there was something in the water, moving. As they got closer, they could see that it was a horse--or, it looked like a horse, though Harry had never seen a horse with a mane that looked as though it was fashioned from bulrushes, or that swam, for that matter.  
  
"Oh, no." Hermione groaned.  
  
Harry and Ron looked at her expectantly.  
  
"It's--" she pulled absently at her hair, something she did only when extremely exasperated or distressed. In this case, she was both. "It's a kelpie." She sighed. "It's a--it can take a lot of forms, you know, there's one up in Loch Ness that likes to take the shape of a sea serpent, and..." She worried at her lower lip, shifting nervously from foot to foot. "But Hagrid wouldn't...I know he wouldn't try to..."  
  
"That doesn't sound too bad." Ron said brightly.  
  
"Er, well, no, I suppose not, unless you tried to ride it."  
  
"Why's that then?" Ron squinted.  
  
"It, er, dives to the bottom of the lake and uh...ishoo."  
  
"What now?" Ron prompted, frowning.  
  
"It...eats you."  
  
"It EATS YOU?" Ron bellowed. Their classmates were understandably startled, as most of them had been listening to the entire conversation. Ron and Hermione had been conversing obliviously, but Harry had noted--to his great annoyance, the way the class made room for the trio, in a way that was both more and less disturbing than if they had actually backed away, there was simply a subtle change of body language. They oriented themselves around, well around Harry, much in the way planets orient themselves around the sun.  
  
"Um, yes." Hermione hedged. "Everything except--your entrails." She frowned worriedly. "Hagrid must have penned it here, but how? I mean, well, I suppose another teacher might do it for him."  
  
"Maybe he promised it that it could eat us." Ron said darkly.  
  
Harry snickered.  
  
"Harry, mate," a hand tapped Harry lightly on the shoulder. He turned to see a Ravenclaw boy he'd never spoken to before. "Good to have you back." the boy smiled enthusiastically.  
  
"Er--" Harry said. "Thanks."  
  
"Yes, Harry," a Hufflepuff girl he also didn't know stepped forward. "We've missed you dreadfully."  
  
"Thank you?" Harry shot a desperate look at Hermione and Ron. They remained unhelpfully amused.  
  
It seemed as though everyone else had just been waiting for this--the cue to mob him with handshakes, hugs, tears, even. He was reminded uncomfortably of his first day in the wizarding world, shaking hands with every single person in the Leaky Cauldron. He'd been 11, unaware of the implications, the fanfare, the mystery surrounding the death of his parents. He'd been blissfully ignorant of his Destiny, concerned only with the fact that he was finally getting away from the Dursleys, buoyant with the knowledge that he did belong somewhere, that he was important to someone...that he mattered.  
  
In that moment, Harry felt a terrible longing for...not childhood, his childhood had been miserable. Something else. Something that felt like the first time he used his wand, the first time he saw the Weasley's at King's Cross, his first Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean, beating a mountain troll in the girl's bathroom...  
  
It was the same voice that had rescued him in the Leaky Cauldron that rescued him now, and he was doubly glad to hear it.  
  
"All righ' then! Y'ev all found yer way here. Good, good. Now who can tell me wha' that is?" He gestured to the kelpie. Harry grinned up at Hagrid's looming figure, as he approached, and could've sworn the half-giant winked.  
  
Every hand in the class went up, and Hermione smirked faintly.  
  
"Dean Thomas, how abou' you?" Hagrid called.  
  
Harry sidled back over to his friends. "Thanks for all your help," he said sardonically.  
  
Ron grinned. "But it was so much more fun to watch you suffer."  
  
"What a wonderful mate you are, Ron." Harry drawled sarcastically.  
  
"Indeed." Ron agreed gravely.  
  
"Now," Hagrid was saying. "All of yer are experienced with placement charms, I expec'? Then all yeh've got ter do is take this bridle," he held up a bridle, coarse brown and leathery looking. "And put it on the kelpie with a placement charm, an 'e's 'armless." He paused to beam around at the class. "Who's firs'?"  
  
The class stared at him incredulously.  
  
"Er..." said Hagrid. "Well, I've got extra bridles, suppose everyone spreads out an' practices placement charms a bi' first. That'll perk yer all right up."  
  
There was a virtual stampede for the bridles.  
  
The trio followed at a lazier gait, hanging back to talk to Hagrid.  
  
"All righ' then 'arry?" Hagrid said cheerily. "I saw yer gettin stampeded."  
  
"My fan club." Harry replied dourly.  
  
"Eh." Hagrid shrugged. "They'll calm down after a bit. They're just glad to see yer , Harry. Blimey, I'M glad to see yer too, but, yeh got ter see, don' yeh?" Hagrid looked almost unhappy as he gestured at the students-- who were mainly just talking and enjoying the weather. Only a few were halfheartedly practicing placement charms, but Harry doubted even those were planning on trying to ride the kelpie.  
  
Lavender Brown caught his eye and waved, smiling brightly. "See what?" Harry shrugged.  
  
"Well yer a hero tha's what." Hagrid answered, shrugging as if it were obvious.  
  
Harry felt a cold fist close around his heart. All these people--they loved him. Not just a superficial kind of love, he was a hero, a savior. They *loved* him. He blanched. "But I'm not."  
  
Before Hagrid could reply, a shout drew his attention. Dean Thomas had successfully performed a placement charm, but the bridle was now stubbornly fastened around a pudgy Ravenclaw boy's torso.  
  
"Er...well carry on. Like I said, 'arry, it's good ter see yeh. Come around and have a cuppa firs' chance yeh get, all righ'? I want ter hear all abou' Romania!" he hurried over to Dean and the boy.  
  
Harry, Ron, and Hermione moved further down the lake, settling near the water. Ron cast their bridle aside with a dubious look. "Rubbish," he snorted. "As if I'd try that. I'd like to keep my entrails neatly inside my body, thank you."  
  
Harry looked blankly at him for a moment. "I have no idea what you just said, but amen."  
  
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Anyone else would question your sanity, not to mention your ages."  
  
"Good thing you're not anyone else, then." Ron said.  
  
Hermione looked down her nose at him, a commendable feat, since Ron was notably taller than her, even sitting. Harry leaned back on his elbows, enjoying the warmth and comfort he felt. He'd been cold for such a long time, he felt as though he were coming home to a place he had not seen since he was very small.  
  
Ron seemed to know just what he was thinking. "Never though we'd see a day like this again, eh?" he said. Even Hermione couldn't roll her eyes.  
  
"Still hanging out with the Weasel and the Mudblood, Potter?" a grating voice broke in. They looked up. Pansy Parkinson was sneering down at them. "Tsk, tsk." She smiled nastily.  
  
Harry suddenly felt cold all over. He rose to his feet, and Ron and Hermione followed suit.  
  
"Pansy." Harry said evenly.  
  
Her eyes flashed. "I've just come to pay my respects, Potter. Like the rest of the mongrels." ("She's a mongrel if I ever saw one." Ron muttered) Pansy smirked. "How does it feel to be the hero? Again."  
  
"Pansy, no one is really in the mood for this bull." Ron growled. "In fact no one here is in the mood to converse with you, and I don't foresee that we will be, ever."  
  
She looked even more gleeful. "What--the great Harry Potter doesn't deign to converse with mere mortals now?" Her laugh reminded Harry very strongly of a Hyena's cackle. "I heard things about you, Potter, how you went nuts, how you APOLOGIZED for killing Voldemort--" she paused to enjoy the shock that flashed across Ron and Hermione's faces. "You're a bloody fraud, Potter. Not a hero."  
  
"I certainly don't think I'm a hero." Harry replied patiently. "Everyone who fought against Voldemort is a hero."  
  
"Is that what your bodyguards told you to say?" Pansy sniped. "It certainly is a pretty little speech, even if it is rehearsed."  
  
Actually, Remus Lupin had advised him on what to say if anyone was crude enough to ask him whether or not he considered himself a hero. Harry didn't say anything. He was beginning to feel very tired.  
  
Pansy smirked some more. "That's what I thought." she said. "I just came over here to let you know--not everyone at this school thinks you're a god, Potter, and we'll make sure you know it too."  
  
Hermione, who had so far been silent, stepped in front of Harry and Ron so she was nose to nose with Pansy. "You're disgusting," she said icily. "Don't you people ever learn? Hasn't all this death taught you anything?"  
  
Pansy looked taken aback for a moment. Then she smiled, a strange look coming into her eyes. "Yes, Granger, I can see you've really been suffering. Hanging about with blood-traitors and scum like yourself, crawling on the underbelly of the true wizarding world." Her voice took on a hissing quality. " I do feel sorry for you, you filthy mudblood, you and your boytoy, and the fraud, and people will know, and they'll talk, and someday when you never expect it, poor Harry will turn up dead--then I really will feel sorry, so sorry that I might be kind enough to put you out of your misery and--"  
  
As the last syllable left Pansy's wide mouth, Hermione, with a look Harry rarely saw, reared back and slapped the girl hard across the face, sending her stumbling back into the lake with a screech.  
  
Pansy shrieked and spluttered. "You COW!" she yelled. "You're nuts! Proffessor Hagrid--" she raised her voice as she clomped back out of the water. "PROFESSOR HAGRID!"  
  
Hagrid ambled over. "Miss Parkinson. Blimey, it looks as though yeh've fallen into the lake m'dear. Up to the castle with yeh before yeh catch a cold. Straight to the hospital wing."  
  
"But-" Pansy spluttered.  
  
"No, no, don't worry about the kelpie; you're excused from today's lesson." Hagrid gave her a firm shove in the direction of Hogwarts. "I'll have Mr.Nott accompany you." He led her away, still spluttering.  
  
Harry and Ron stared at Hermione, who shrugged. "She was totally out of line," she said blandly.  
  
Ron sighed. "If only I had one of those muggle vidcam-rad-um-things," he said.  
  
"Video camera." Harry corrected him absently, grinning from ear to ear. He wasn't even unsettled by Pansy's death threat. It wasn't like he hadn't gotten them before.  
  
"Bloody Slytherins." Hermione grumbled. "Always shooting off like they're the victims. I can't STAND--"  
  
"Yeah that reminds me," Harry interrupted. "What did she mean about my bodyguards?"  
  
Ron and Hermione glanced nervously at each other. "Er-"  
  
____________________________________________________________________________ __  
  
Draco had always thought displays of brutality quite enjoyable--as long as they had nothing to do with him. Wizard's chess was brutal in the way that most appealed to him. He could study it dispassionately, he could make calculated movements, he could appear on the surface as at peace as he liked, while still indulging in a rather base need for violence.  
  
Which was why the events of the day before bothered him so much. The Slytherin common room was blissfully empty as he slouched in on of the squat green leather chairs playing an absentminded game of chess against himself.  
  
It was a beautiful chess set, carved out of marble and onyx, each piece enchanted with a permanent polishing charm, and cut so skillfully he believed it possible to cut himself on a piece should he attempt it. The pieces were shouting insults and mangled instructions at him, but he ignored them. His mind was elsewhere.  
  
He couldn't honestly deny that he hadn't enjoyed, at least a tiny bit, the feeling of absolute power when he'd grabbed Ginny Weasley, the rush of vindication he felt with her at his mercy. But that the loss of control was like a termite gnawing at the foundations of a carefully constructed house made entirely of wood. Draco didn't loose control. Not in public, where he might be exposed for the fraud he was, and certainly not in outbursts of violence. It was much more his style to deliver a searing remark and walk away; to heighten the sense of worthlessness for whoever was fool enough to get in his way. Perhaps it was that he'd already been on edge. It had proved more difficult then he'd thought to come back to school. Everything and everyone seemed fantastically young or just consciously naive.  
  
He moved a pawn and captured a neglected bishop, glaring resentfully at the chess board, he felt bewildered, angry, and something he hadn't expected. He felt afraid. It was an emotion he was becoming despicably familiar with. The very worst of it was that he didn't know what exactly he was afraid of. Someone who cared for nothing could fear nothing, and though he supposed he cared a great deal for himself, he wasn't afraid for himself.  
  
Fear was his oppressive bedfellow, like a suffocating weight on his chest-- it gripped him in the deepest moments of the night. A paralyzing, choking terror that sunk its claws into him and ripped everything he'd fought down so determinedly, shamefully into the open.  
  
The chessboard offered no answers, though a daring pawn screamed at him in a tiny voice: "Get off it, you tosser!"  
  
He captured it with the black knight, although the subsequent beheading of the pawn consoled him only briefly.  
  
He found himself studying his hands; long, slender white fingers with neat, rounded fingernails. Hands destined for painting and delicate wandwork, not brutality. So...why?  
  
He never let his intellect be ruled by his physical inclinations. Ever. He liked things neatly squared away, simple and clean and sterile. And separate from him. His hands had betrayed him; his strength had turned on his intellect and on Ginny Weasley.  
  
Lucius Malfoy had always advised his son to take pleasure in nothing for its own sake. You become too devoted to it, and devotion was weakness, not to mention a waste of time. Lucius Malfoy hated waste.  
  
Then again, Draco mused, his father was dead, so a fat lot of good all that pontificating had done him.  
  
It was what she'd said about him. She'd called him crazy. (Although, he mused, he didn't know why it bothered him what she thought. The Weasley girl was mad as a hatter. Fizzing Whizbees, indeed.) He'd remembered the madness in his father's eyes, the way Draco had seen his own face reflected in them, the way he'd seen his father's face, his father's madness, reflected in HIMSELF.  
  
That was true. Fear. Madness. Loss of all control. Of the desire to control, of the desire to win, of the drive to succeed. He'd been wallowing in the beginnings of madness. The Weasley girl had called him crazy and he'd seen that truth with sudden clarity. Like falling into an endless pit while one is sleeping, and waking up to find that you're falling, that you'll be falling forever, and never, ever escape, and there's nothing you or anyone else can do about it. He'd been overcome with such self loathing and hatred for her, and hatred for his father, hatred for Voldemort and his stupid ambition to be the ultimate evil, when anyone who read history could see he was just a puffed up mudblood with a serious inferiority complex...and then she'd insulted his father, had echoed his thoughts aloud and how he had hated himself all the more, and he'd despised her tenfold, and then...and then...  
  
And then what?  
  
He'd attacked her?  
  
It hadn't started that way. Or had it? He only remembered feelings and memories engulfing him, and a rage like he'd only felt once beforehand possessed him.  
  
He'd meant to kill her, he was quite sure of that.  
  
He moved a white knight to capture a black castle, plucking absentmindedly at his lip. He'd never felt so angry at one person in all his life--or was that true? He'd never felt the heat of anger. His had always been cold fury, not impulsive, but patient.  
  
Once, as a child, he'd been tripped by one of his distant cousins at his first dinner party. He was seven at the time, but he'd felt humiliated, and apparently so had his father, because he'd been given a sound beating after the party. He'd never said anything to his cousin about it; the boy had been mindlessly teasing, and thoughtlessly cruel. He did not, could not know the pain he had subsequently caused, and they had moved on well enough. But Draco remembered. He could set aside any emotion, any desire until the most crucial moment. It was his greatest gift, in his opinion, besides his good looks.  
  
In the case of his cousin, the crucial moment had come when he became engaged to a rather pretty witch when Draco was 15, coming into his own, and his cousin was 18. The girl had been neatly seduced and properly ruined, and shortly thereafter suffered a tragic accident after a run in with a rogue Auror who owed Draco a favor, and as far as he knew she was still in St. Mungos counting ceiling tiles.  
  
Waiting, prolonging, delaying, winning. It was what made him who he was. How very strange it was, he thought, how many things you could remember simply by playing a game of chess. He studied the board carefully before making his move, and the black knight captured the white queen.  
  
____________________________________________________________________________ _____  
  
"Ground snakeskin, powdered bicorn horn, stir three times counter clockwise before adding the..." Ginny murmured the instructions under her breath as she carried them out, staring fiercely at her trembling hands and willing herself not to make a mistake.  
  
Professor Snape had been less than pleased that she had a fair excuse for missing his class--even now she could feel his eyes on her, she imagined twin holes being burned into her back between her shoulder blades.  
  
Privately, Ginny though Professor Snape was quite decent, ignoring the lack of personal hygiene, the intolerable deference to Slytherin, irrational hate of all things Gryffindor--especially Harry, and his constant nastiness to everyone besides Draco Malfoy. So she sympathized, in a distant and amused way, with his frustration in not being able to punish her.  
  
Of course that didn't stop her from feeling dimly happy about her continued existence as a human being rather than a vegetable. She would have been happier if her excuse hadn't involved a vivid hallucination of a 17-year- old Lord Voldemort, but she would take what she could get.  
  
"Hey--Ginny."  
  
Ginny looked up. Cassandra Mortmain, a sixth year Ravenclaw was leaning over her cauldron, a curious look in her eye.  
  
"Mmmm?" Ginny answered noncommittally.  
  
"I...It's just I heard that you got into a fight with Malfoy and passed out...is it true?"  
  
Ginny sighed inwardly. "Er-yes-well, I didn't exactly get in a fight with Malfoy, it was more like--"  
  
"I hear--" A dark-haired Hufflepuff boy whispered, edging closer, "that he used the Cruciatus on you--and that's why you fainted."  
  
Ginny raised her eyebrows. Was that so? She almost laughed. "No. It was just--"  
  
"Did you really tell him to rot in hell?" A blonde Ravenclaw next to Cassandra wanted to know.  
  
"Er-yes-I don't really remem--"  
  
"Did he say anything about attacking those Aurors? I heard you were fighting about Harry Potter...?" the Hufflepuff interrupted.  
  
"No--I real can't s--"  
  
"WEASLEY!" Snape's voice barked. The other students scurried back to their cauldrons. Ginny winced.  
  
"Ye-e-s?"  
  
"You can nurse your budding fame on your own time, Weasley." Snape said crisply. "10 points from Gryffindor."  
  
Ginny's heart sank a little and she turned back to her cauldron, fixing her eyes on her potions ingredients.  
  
It was completely unfair, not that she had ever learned to expect fair treatment from Professor Snape, okay, not even decent treatment, actually. She added boomslang skin to her potion as a wave of nausea overtook her. Her legs felt like jelly, her vision blurred momentarily focusing and then seeming to fade, only it wasn't her eyesight that was fading, it was her surroundings, changing, shifting, melting and reforming...the strange feeling passed, and she gave herself a little shake, grabbing the vial of powdered eel and preparing to put it in the cauldron, when a slender white hand reached out and grabbed her wrist.  
  
"No, I said powdered dragon scales." A low, musical voice chided. "Honestly, without me here, I do believe you'd kill us all."  
  
Ginny felt a cold shock run down her spine. Was it possible she's fallen asleep in class? She forced herself to look up into the smooth, smiling face of Tom Riddle. "Oh," she rasped, all the breath in her lungs spent on one syllable.  
  
Tom laughed a little and added the dragon scales to the cauldron. "I'll forgive you this once, I suppose." He sighed. "After all, you were quite sick. Are you sure you're feeling better now?"  
  
Stay calm. That's the key, she thought desperately. "Sure." She hoped she sounded casual. "Just a bit tired is all."  
  
"Yeah?" He smiled. "Lazy chit. Keep up, eh?" He glanced up at the board.  
  
"Er-right," she agreed absently. "What's next?"  
  
In a minute, she thought, I'll wake up. Professor Snape will shake me awake. Any minute now. So I'll just keep calm, act normal, it's just a dream, everything is okay. I'm okay. I am. I'm okay.  
  
Her hands, she found, had automatically been handing and stirring and pouring and chopping and her mouth had been moving, lips and teeth and tongue forming words and sounds and pitches all without any prompting from her. She shivered slightly. There was something distinctly creepy about this. It all felt too real, the stone work tables, the damp air. Other students around her, working quietly.  
  
Her eyes roamed the dungeon, and with a start she recognized Draco Malfoy working at a table only a few feet from her. Or anyway, she THOUGHT he was Draco Malfoy. But what was he doing there? He looked...different in a way she couldn't quite explain. She stared at him. What was the difference? His angles were softer; his hair was cut in an old-fashioned sort of way. He looked up, catching her eye and she could see that his eyes were green, not silver. Almost as green as Harry's. The sight of those eyes in Malfoy's pale face sent a shock through her. The blonde boy's lips curled into a half smile and he nodded at her. Her jaw dropped.  
  
It HAD to be a dream, she was sure of that. No Malfoy she had ever seen had green eyes, nor would any Malfoy ever, at any point in history, show a sign of respect to a Weasley. Not in public, not in private, not in life or in death. She stifled the urge to laugh.  
  
"Stop mooning and stir this while I add the unicorn hair." Tom chided. There was an unexpected edge in his voice.  
  
"Not mooning." Ginny muttered petulantly, but she obediently stirred. He smiled down at her, and a picture flashed in her mind of a little boy, the same little boy she'd seen before, dirty and scruffy with untidy black hair and huge, dark eyes staring pitifully at her out of a wan, sickly face. He was holding out a flower, a daisy, to her, with such a look of trust that her heart shattered.  
  
Ginny blinked. It hadn't been a memory. Couldn't be a memory, she'd never seen that little boy in her life...so what did it mean?  
  
Tom was staring at her. "What?" he said. "Why are you looking at me like that?"  
  
Ginny bit her lip. "Sometimes..." she hesitated. "You're just not the person I think you are sometimes." she answered evasively.  
  
"That so?" He smiled. "Well sometimes you surprise me too. Almost like I haven't known you my whole life."  
  
Her mouth went dry. "Er-exactly." she said, averting her eyes to the shimmering surface of the cauldron. Whole life? A fluttering panic was rising in her gut. She didn't like this. Not at all. Not. At. All. It was bad. Worse than bad. Horrible, and heading into the valley of the Humongously Wrong.  
  
"You'd better turn down the flame." she said stupidly.  
  
Tom nodded. "You're like my right hand man, you know?" he said as turned the flame lower.  
  
Ginny felt as though he'd popped a bubble of hope growing inside her, and she couldn't say why. She looked up at him steadily. "Thanks." her voice was flat and dull. He opened his mouth to reply, but the Professor's voice cut in abruptly.  
  
"All right class; bring me a vial of whatever is in your cauldron. We won't know whether it worked or not until the full moon passes, but I want a scroll on the properties of aura enhancing potions by Wednesday."  
  
Tom filled and labeled their vial and she followed him. "Come on," he said, after handing it to the teacher. "I'm starving."  
  
"Lunch." Ginny inferred.  
  
He looked bemused. "Yes, that is when we generally eat."  
  
She smiled weakly and followed Tom out of the dungeon and into the sunlight. 


	6. Chapter Five:The Other Side

Blaise remembered the months leading up to the war with painful clarity. She remembered her father, the look in his eyes when the news came that Lord Voldemort had returned, she remembered the dark mark, almost seeming to pulse with its own morbid imitation of life. She remembered shadowy figures gliding past her bedroom door in the deepest hours of the night, bringing with them a wave of bone-chilling despair. She remembered strange chants echoing up from the dungeons and breathless nights spent frozen with her comforter pulled up over her head.  
  
As much as she wanted to, Blaise couldn't escape those images. They were written on the face of every student, alive in the air, in the shadows, they jumped out at her everywhere. She felt sick and dizzy as she pushed her way through the mass of students on their way to class. She twitched nervously every time someone brushed by her.  
  
'Put one foot in front of the other,' she thought fiercely. 'Move forward, and walk up the stairs; don't forget to jump the trick step; don't look at the first years, so small and frightened; don't think about how you don't care, just keep walking, and turn left at that painting; and don't, definitely don't look at the hollow-cheeked 6th and 7th years who all look the same, who all look like you... Just walk in the door, smile at the Professor, sit down, and don't think about how your life will never be the same again.'  
  
No one looked at her as she shuffled into Charms and sat down. She drummed her red, bitten fingernails against the desk, gazing unseeingly at her reflection in the high soaring windows. Her image in the glass was sickly, almost ghostlike; and her eyes, ringed with dark smudges seemed to swallow the rest of her face. The anonymous note felt hot in her tightly clenched fist, and she thought too of Professor Dumbledore's note, and the unopened letter. There had only been four signatures on her letter, but the note had specifically cited that there were 5 people....maybe they were talking about completely different things, but Blaise felt that it was unlikely that she should be involved in two completely unconnected mysterious occurrences.  
  
"Today," Professor Flitwick trilled, "We'll begin work on the Portus charm. Don't be discouraged if you can't master it right away, many, er, experienced wizards have trouble with it..." Flitwick trailed off for a moment, his eyes wandering over the blank faces of the students. Everyone in the 7th year class could be called experienced. "If you'll all please turn to page 2,347 of your texts, we'll begin."  
  
Blaise turned the pages of the book listlessly, gazing at the lines and squiggles and trying to force them into words, but she couldn't focus. The letter, the portkey, the assassins, the anonymous note...there was something there, something just out of her reach...  
  
"Improper use of the Portus charm can result in up to a year in Azkaban." Professor Flitwick squeaked loudly. Blaise shook herself, trying to pay attention, but her thoughts drifted again to the crumpled note in her pocket, written in her own handwriting. Written 45 years ago.  
  
She glanced furtively across the room where Potter, Granger, and Weasley were staring dully at their books. Blaise's eyes wandered back to the windows again. The sunlight glittering through the glass felt sharp and hard, but she didn't look away. Windows. There was something important that she was supposed to remember... What was it?  
  
"Creation and use of an illegal or unauthorized portkey is punishable by up to five years in Azkaban..." Flitwick chirped seriously. Blaise smirked faintly. Azkaban was so overrun with war criminals; she doubted the Wizengamot would spare a thought for an unauthorized portkey. The Hog's Head, the portkey, the letter, and the note...she ran it through her mind again--four mysterious things in two days. There was a connection, of course, and it involved bloody Potter and company. Her eyes drifted back to them. Weasley had turned to stare longingly out the windows, and Potter, not even pretending to listen, was shooting silver sparks out of his wand and watching them fizzle. Only Granger was even attempting to take notes, a serious _expression on her face. Her eyes looked shadowed, as if she hadn't slept for a long time. Then again, who did sleep these days?  
  
Blaise thought back to a time, it felt like a thousand years ago when she could go to bed every night secure in the knowledge that the world, while not exactly safe, was perhaps dependably treacherous. As long as she kept her wits about her, she'd always assumed everything would come out right. She wanted to cry, thinking about it. It had been two years ago, but how young she had been then, and how naive. She hadn't known what she was capable of, or what others were capable of, she hadn't know, she realized too late, anything at all.  
  
She found herself studying the angles of Potter's face. His cheekbones were so defined under that wan complexion they looked as though they might scissor through the delicate skin like paper. She wished fervently that she could hate him, like Pansy and Millicent and Draco. She wished he didn't look so tired, so sad, and so...destroyed. Instead, it hurt to look at him. His pain was like a black vortex that tugged at her heart. 'I'm sorry,' she said silently. 'I can't help you, I'm so sorry.'  
  
Blaise wondered why his friends couldn't see it, couldn't help him. She felt a satisfying stab of anger towards Weasley and Granger.  
  
"Now, the incantation for the Portus charm is fairly simple. The difficult part is holding in your mind the exact location of where you are going. For instance, if I were to create a portkey to take me to the Great Hall, not only would I have to know exactly what the hall looked like, I would have to hold in my mind the exact place that I wanted to arrive in."  
  
Had it been only two years since she was secure and separated from feelings like this? It didn't seem fair that everything had changed so quickly. She should have had some time to reconcile herself to it. She supposed that Harry had spent his entire life reconciling himself to his destiny. She had seen it in him, even in 5th year when everyone was still calling him a nut. A sense of resignation, almost a fatalistic air, and she had wondered--did he know? Even then, did he know what his destiny was? She'd thought of it only in passing, taking for granted that she didn't have a destiny to worry about, but now...  
  
Now what?  
  
"If you attempted a Portus Charm to perhaps your dorm, it would be much easier than a place you have only been once before. You might remember the windows differently than they actually are, and perhaps end up in a completely different place."  
  
It was acutely disturbing, she mused, knowing her future before it happened. She burned with curiosity about the sealed envelope. What was inside it? She remembered Dumbledore's words--her words, even though she hadn't said them yet--A 'bloody lot of people' were looking for that letter. Had the strange people--if they were indeed people--been looking for it? Or had they simply been after the Necrominicon?  
  
During the war, at least, there had been an identifiable enemy, no matter who you were loyal to. Blaise wasn't loyal to Dumbledore and Potter, but neither was she loyal to Voldemort. She hated him, despite her upbringing. Millicent Bullstrode referred to him secretly as 'uppity mudblood trash', but always in fearful tones. Blaise's blood ran cold at the remembrance of that fear, the fear that Voldemort inspired in everyone. She hated his laugh, she hated his greed, she hated the way his sickness invaded and destroyed everything precious to her. The ones with loyalty had been lucky. The ones with the dark mark, and the ones following the Headmaster. Blaise was loyal only to her friends, to her family. She didn't have the luxury of good or evil, my side and their side. The world became one of those who hurt her, and those who didn't.  
  
She imagined Harry's life had been the same way. His friends being picked off one by one, his life being chipped away piece by piece until there was nothing left for him to do but what he was born to do. And now it was done. She wondered if he was also asking 'now what?'  
  
Blaise had been staring at Potter for a full ten minutes without realizing that he was now staring back at her, a challenging look in his eyes. She blinked, but didn't look away. The pain in his eyes was striking...she felt as though she'd been punched in the gut--she could hardly breathe. Granger looked up too and elbowed Weasley out of his stupor. The three of them glared menacingly at her, as if just daring her to say a word.  
  
"Miss Zabini?" Professor Flitwick squeaked, sidling over to her. "Would you please show me your Portus charm?"  
  
"Hm-what?" Blaise mumbled, dragging her eyes away from the trio. Flitwick watched her expectantly. "Oh, um, of course..."  
  
____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
About two weeks after she arrived home from her first traumatic year at Hogwarts, Ginny had lost her ability to speak. The day it happened, she'd been swimming in a creek not too far from the Burrow. It had been one of those hot, breathless days and the icy creek water felt good sluicing over her--but by the time she returned home she was running a high fever.  
  
None of her mother's home cures seemed to work, so for a couple of days she stayed in bed. Her whole body ached and her throat was sore and swollen, too swollen to do much more than cough. During that time Ginny drifted in and out of a fevered delirium, unsure of what was real--her moher's soothing voice, cool hands touching her face, strange faces and voices.... It was almost too much.  
  
Just as her parents were beginning to worry that she was seriously ill, Ginny's fever broke, but her voice didn't return. None of the healers could figure out what had happened, although one young healer versed in muggle medicine suggested it might be psychosomatic.  
  
Ginny felt like a wreck at first--it was too soon to be losing control over her own body again. At first her parents tried to simply have her write down everything she wanted to say, but it was tiring and tedious, and impossible to have any sort of meaningful conversation, so she stayed in her room with the door shut or took long walks in the country. Secretly she thought that her family might be grateful that they weren't forced to face the awkwardness of the situation.  
  
A person without a voice gradually loses language. For the first two days her thought processes remained the same as before. If she stubbed her toe on a rock, she thought "ouch" in words. When she saw the village children playing in the pond she thought "haha" and things like that. But after a period of being unable to speak those words, something changed in her mind. When the twins were being nice she perceived an image of bright golden light. Her mother's words and gestures when she came in to say goodnight were a soft pink; a bright yellow orange came through her father's hand when he reached down to ruffle her hair.  
  
Living like that utterly convinced her of the extreme limitations of language. She was just 11, but she had a deep understanding of the degree to which one loses control over words once they are spoken or written. She developed a keen eye for nonverbal communication and a curiosity about language and began to think of it as a tool that could encompass both a moment and an eternity.  
  
Her voice came back just as suddenly. She was sitting in the living room, playing a lazy game of Gobstones with Ron, when their father came home and announced that they were taking a family trip to Egypt.  
  
"Brilliant!" Ron and Ginny had exclaimed at once. Her father and brother had stared at her, dumbfounded.  
  
"Gin, did you just talk?"  
  
"I guess so." She'd answered gingerly.  
  
"Have you been able to talk all this time?" Her father wanted to know.  
  
"No. I really couldn't talk."  
  
"What did it feel like? Was it hard?" Ron asked.  
  
"No." She'd replied. "I felt like I finally understood some things."  
  
Ginny felt like that now, walking across the too-green lawn. Everything seemed to be a thin veneer painted over something darker and uglier. She could almost feel another reality shifting beneath this one, silent and waiting. She felt dizzy; every breath she took made her feel as though a black vapor was filling her lungs.  
  
"I hate it when you do that." Tom's petulant voice brought her back to herself. His tone was at once smooth and rough.  
  
"Do...what?" She queried, struggling to keep the tremor of fear out of her voice. She simply couldn't (you meant couldn't I imagine) get that odd feeling out of her mind. It was almost like walking into the ocean with her clothes on, the waves pounding her body, and swimming out into the horizon with nothing holding her back. Altogether deeply unsettling.  
  
"That." He answered pointedly. "You...fade." He paused. "It's like you're not even here."  
  
Ginny forced a laugh. "That's..."  
  
"Don't say 'ridiculous'" Tom snapped.  
  
"I wasn't going to. But since you mention it, it IS ridiculous. I'm here, okay? I'm yours." Ooops. She hadn't meant to say that last part. Ginny sucked in her breath as the two warring voices in her head finally agreed on something. IDIOT!  
  
Tom watched her silently for a moment. "Oh." he said carefully. "Let's eat."  
  
Ginny blinked. They'd stopped walking, and were standing under a large tree. She could see the lake sparkling peacefully a hundred yards away, and bees droned lazily, drunkenly swooping through the vegetation. Again, it all felt too idyllic. Something was...wrong. A spike of fear shot through her stomach.  
  
Tom waved his wand carelessly, conjuring a picnic blanket and basket. Ginny smiled involuntarily. "What?" He raised his eyebrows. Her lips twitched slightly.  
  
"Nothing."  
  
"Sitting is customary." Tom suggested with a wry smile. "And there's something I have to tell you."  
  
"Oh?" Ginny's stomach fluttered.  
  
"Yes." Tom handed her a sandwich. Their fingers brushed and she felt a little thrill shoot up her spine. Oh, shut UP. She snapped at herself silently. There was a pregnant pause as their eyes met. Ginny looked away quickly.  
  
"So you wanted to tell me something?"  
  
Tom seemed to collect himself. "Yeah. Do you remember that book that we found in the library last week?"  
  
Ginny bit her lip. She stared determinedly at her sandwich, picking nervously at the top layer of bread. "Um...remind me?"  
  
"The one I got from Professor Hale. For my extra credit project?" He paused. "The one that talked about the Necrominicon."  
  
"Oh...oh yeah, uh-huh."  
  
Tom smiled thinly. "Well, I think I found it."  
  
"The...Necrominicon?"  
  
"Yes." His eyes were shining, and he seemed to expect her to say something.  
  
Ginny's mind raced, searching her memory for anything she might have heard about a book called the Necrominicon. She drew a blank. "Oh! Well! Um, that's--good. Yay!" She offered a weak smile.  
  
His face fell. In her mind's eye Ginny saw the same dark haired little boy as before, his face pressed up against a dingy window looking so lost that her heart felt like it had splintered in her chest. Instinctively, she grabbed his hand. "I-I'm just, um, shocked," she improvised. "How did you find it?"  
  
Tom grinned, apparently placated. "Well, I met this rare book dealer in Knockturn Alley two summers ago, and helped him out of a scrape. He owed me a favor, so I wrote to him, asking if he could locate a book for me, and he did."  
  
"But...well he gave it to you for free?"  
  
"Well," Tom hedged. "Not exactly. I mean, he FOUND it, but the current owner is quite attached to it, and he really won't give it up without a price."  
  
"How much?"  
  
"A lot." he said firmly, closing the subject.  
  
Ginny bit her lip. She couldn't help feeling she'd played a secondary role in that conversation. Like the words had come and gone without her consent. "But--you--won't hurt anyone right?" Well that was a dumb question, she thought.  
  
Tom stared at her for a moment, and she didn't look away. Looking into his eyes was like staring into endless shadows. "Of course not." he said slowly. "You know that...I would never harm anyone."  
  
"What about the Chamber of Secrets?" Ginny blurted before she realized what she'd said. 'Oh god he's going to kill me,' she fretted. 'Get stuffed, he is not going to kill you,' the other voice answered.  
  
Tom's eyes widened. "You know that was an accident."  
  
'Accident my arse,' she answered silently. Her heart was practically beating out of her chest, but whether it was from fear or anger or something else, she couldn't tell. "I know, I just...I don't know why I said that." Again, her voice sounded strange, like she really did not know where the words had come from. She felt detached, as though standing on the edge of a dream.  
  
Tom was quiet. "I'm going to meet the owner in Hogsmeade. I need you to cover for me."  
  
"When? Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?" She bit her lip. "You shouldn't go alone." Wait, what?  
  
Tom smiled and touched her cheek. She had expected his hands to be cold, but they were warm, stained with ink from his quill. "I don't know if he's dangerous."  
  
"All the--" Ginny started, but the lines of his face were beginning to blur. She felt like some thick, hot liquid was brewing in her heart, making it impossible for blood to get to her brain, and when she tried to speak again, bile rose in her throat. Tom gripped her shoulders gently, his eyes searching her face, moving closer, or was it farther away? Her perspective seemed to be off...she saw his lips moving with no sound, and thought suddenly that his touch was like red light, bright and hot and hard, harsh and unforgiving and attractive, but dangerous. Dangerous and frightening.  
  
Her last thought before her mind was engulfed in a white hot sweep of pain was that perhaps even he did not know how dangerous he was. 


	7. Chapter Six: Prelude

Author's Note: I am so sorry this took so long, I have no excuse,r eally, except that I write slowly. So anyway, thanks to everyone who has been reviewing, I love you all. Also, I apologize to people who didn't like the departure of the angst in the last chapter. The angst is back and it's here to stay.  
  
**************************************************************************** ******  
  
For a moment the world spun out of control--all she knew was pain, unbearable, unending agony. Ginny struggled to sit up, to move, to get her bearings, to do something, anything, but her limbs were flailing of their own volition. Bile rose in her throat and black spots darted in and out of her vision. I am going to die, she thought dully. There didn't seem to be much she could do about it, which was strangely comforting.  
  
Distantly, she heard voices--panicked, hysterical voices, and there were cool hand lifting her, holding her arms and legs, and hot liquid was being poured down her throat, she sputtered, choked, but gradually swallowed a mouthful of the stuff. She couldn't tell what it tasted like, her tongue felt like it was being detached from itself molecule by molecule...but as she swallowed, the pain faded, her muscles relaxed, and she could cry for the fear and pain of it.  
  
"Ginny?" A soft, female voice. "Are you all right?" She sounded so far away...Ginny blinked, trying to clear her vision. Madame Pomfrey hovered nervously above her. Ginny felt a weak smile tug at her lips. She'd seen that expression on her mother's face so many times...she felt a sharp pain in her chest. Stupid to think of her mother.  
  
"Is she all right, Poppy?" Another voice queried. Ginny didn't need to look to identify the voice as Albus Dumbledore's.  
  
"I...have to go to the bathroom." She rasped.  
  
"Of course." Madame Pomfrey said gently. "Do you need help?" She asked, as the redhead sat up gingerly. Ginny flushed.  
  
"Er-no," she answered quickly. The floor was icy against her bare feet as she hobbled towards the bathroom, but she felt hot and drowsy. Her mind was desperately trying to make sense of what had happened. Had it all been a dream?  
  
She wrenched open the bathroom door, practically throwing herself inside before collapsing thankfully on the floor. It seemed likely that she had just dreamt it all, but it felt so real...no, not real, she decided, but not like a dream. It had the slightly blurred realities of...a memory.  
  
"Memories are funny things, aren't they?" A voice above her mused. Ginny looked up.  
  
Tom Riddle was perched on the edge of the sink, smiling delightedly.  
  
"Tom." She croaked. "Did...did I fall asleep again?"  
  
He frowned. "I think you no the answer to that."  
  
"No." She answered slowly. "No, you're not him."  
  
"You're not as stupid as you look, my love."  
  
"Gee, thanks." Ginny closed her eyes, pressing her cheek against the cold tile. "Now leave me alone, I have a headache."  
  
"Aw, my poor lamb. I know you just feel awful." His voice was soft and taunting, and when he spoke again it was quiet and familiar, Molly Weasley's voice. "Maybe what you need is a mother's touch." His tone turned frighteningly ugly. "Oh right, she's dead."  
  
"Go away." Ginny's voice quavered.  
  
"Has that ever worked, my clever little Virginia?" Tom cooed.  
  
Ginny shook her head, a heavy weariness overtaking her.  
  
"Are you listening?" Tom said sharply, thankfully in his own voice.  
  
"No." Ginny murmured.  
  
"Good." He smirked. "I'm just here to offer you," his voice mellowed and brightened to her brother Fred's tenor, "a little brotherly advice. Now listen up. You go back in there and tell some crackpot story about Voldemort and you're on the next bus to St. Mungo's, got me?" He leaned close, "No one wants to relive the past few years. No one wants to believe that Harry Potter might have failed--well, one or two people, but you know that if you set the alarm the Death Eaters left alive in this world will start looking. And maybe they'll find a way to bring him back. And maybe they'll start by cutting open that pretty little head of yours and finding out what's inside..." Tom's eyes glinted maliciously.  
  
Ginny glared at him, "Shut UP," she snapped, though she could not keep the note of fear out of her voice. "I'm not stupid."  
  
The room spun briefly and she pushed herself up against the wall, trying to regain her fragile equilibrium. "Why do you care, anyway? Afraid you'll disappear when they start tinkering around in my head?"  
  
"Sure, I would be. If I were a figment of your imagination."  
  
She stared glumly at him. "And what makes you think you're not?"  
  
Tom smiled thinly. "If I am, how would I know? And if I'm not, why would I tell you? Because obviously, if I'm simply a figment of your imagination, then I'm here because you want me here."  
  
"I DON'T want you here." Ginny replied firmly.  
  
His smile widened into a grin. "But what about me?" said her mother's voice.  
  
"Or me?" Her father's voice continued.  
  
Ginny let her head drop onto her knees. "Stop it." She whispered tiredly. "I....just..."  
  
"Stop? Stop, eh?" Sirius's voice laughed.  
  
"Yes, stop." She whimpered. "Please."  
  
"You're no fun at all." Tom said dryly, his voice returning to normal.  
  
"I...what's going on? What's happening to me?" Tears welled up in her eyes.  
  
"You're losing it?" Tom shrugged.  
  
She laughed. The sound was harsh and ugly, and Ginny winced. "Maybe you're right."  
  
"I'm usually right." Tom breezed, offering a strange smile.  
  
"Are you even here?" Ginny sighed. "Did I dream the other Tom? Or...remember him?"  
  
"Don't be stupid, love. How could you remember him? You never knew him. Now be a good girl and go back to bed."  
  
"What should I say?" Ginny murmured drowsily.  
  
"Don't say anything. Tell them you don't remember."  
  
"But-"  
  
"I'm just looking out for you, love." Her mother's voice chided gently. "We have responsibilities, you and I." Ginny felt herself nod.  
  
"I know." She whispered.  
  
Her legs shook as she stood and opened the door, stepping back into the glaring whiteness of the hospital wing. She walked slowly back to bed and sank gratefully into the mattress before either Madame Pomfrey or Professor Dumbledore spoke.  
  
"Miss Weasley?" Dumbledore said gently.  
  
She looked at him arranging her face in what she hoped was an innocent _expression.  
  
"Madame Pomfrey tells me that this is the second time in two days that you've lost consciousness for several hours."  
  
Ginny nodded uncertainly.  
  
"Do you know why?" the Headmaster queried.  
  
"No." Ginny answered truthfully.  
  
"Miss Weasley--" Dumbledore hesitated. "I don't doubt that the past few months have been the most difficult of your life...your parents, your responsibilities to your family, to your friends...you must, at best, be a very tired young woman."  
  
Ginny fingered the pale yellow blanket draped across the bed. "You think I'm just...falling asleep?"  
  
Dumbledore almost smiled. "Nothing so trivial as that, Miss Weasley. I suspect you may be suffering some sort of delayed shock. After everything that has happened, it's understandable."  
  
Ginny was quiet for a moment. "Professor," she said tentatively, "when...when...V...Voldemort came back..." She shuddered involuntarily at the name, "Did you know that it would end that way?"  
  
Dumbledore sighed softly. "No. No, a great many things happened that I did not forsee." There was a deep sadness in his voice. "And I apologize for that, Ginny."  
  
She bit her lip. "And so when you gave me the sword...you didn't know what would happen?"  
  
"My dear, I am still not clear on what ACTUALLY happened." He looked very tired. "Harry has never chosen to share that with me." Dumbledore looked grave. "And I have never--I will never ask him, if it can be helped." The regret in his voice made her stomach hurt.  
  
"I still hear him." Ginny whispered. "In--my head---only, only sometimes." Ginny stammered quickly at the Professor's searching look.  
  
"During your times of unconsciousness, do you hear Voldemort? Or see him?" Dumbledore's voice took on an urgent tone.  
  
"No. I don't know if I see or hear anything." Ginny said softly. "I never remember."  
  
Dumbledore looked at her for a long time, finally he sighed. "I do not doubt that you may hear him for a long time, Miss Weasley. A soul that black leaves a scar on everything it touches." He patted her hand. "But if you will indulge an old man, Professor Snape has a potion I believe would benefit you greatly, if only to help you sleep at night."  
  
Ginny looked at him for a moment, then nodded.  
  
____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
Harry ran his fingers reverently over the spine of the aged book-- 'Quidditch through the Ages'. It seemed as though lifetimes had passed since his biggest concern had been his first Quidditch match and retrieving this book from the clutches of the evil Professor Snape.  
  
The Gryffindor common room looked exactly as it had that day when he'd begun to piece together the mystery of the Sorcerer's Stone. The carpets fading, and the wall hangings a little dusty. There was a fire blazing in the grate, and Ron and Hermione sat on the couch studying quietly. Well, Hermione was studying quietly and Ron was trying to distract her. It seemed like everything had gone back to normal, if anything was ever normal at Hogwarts. But it hadn't. He hadn't.  
  
It was becoming tiresome, pretending that his life had suddenly become perfect. When he was with Ron and Hermione he found himself trying to remember what it had once been like--he would think 'When Ron says something degrading about Malfoy, Harry laughs' or 'When Hermione nags, Harry smiles and pats her on the shoulder'. But no matter what he did, they watched him with wary eyes. It made his head hurt.  
  
As if on impulse, although he had been thinking about it all day, he retrieved the puzzling note from his pocket. 'With the lycans comes the birth of the circle.' Right. He had briefly considered asking Hermione about it, surely she'd know something about circles and lycans and all that rubbish. Still, he didn't want to involve Hermione or Ron. Not unless it was absolutely necessary, and maybe not even then.  
  
Of course, he could have looked it up himself, but the library held some ugly memories, and the thought of doing unnecessary homework was not only repulsive, it was utterly wearying; so even if he had wanted to go to the library, he would have lacked the energy to search through all of those books.  
  
And then there was the fact that he wasn't even entirely sure he wanted to know.  
  
Except he did. He really, really did.  
  
Because there was one part of all this that Harry hadn't admitted to himself.  
  
He was kind of excited.  
  
After spending the past few years of his life caught up in a prophecy and battling an evil dark lord, there wasn't much he didn't know about fighting. He could do wizard duels and bloody battles and war zone morality. He couldn't do all of the 'recovery' part that everyone seemed so preoccupied with now. Not that he didn't want other people to recover, but for him, the few things he'd had before the war seemed far away now, and he wasn't sure how to get them back, or even if he wanted them back.  
  
As if he'd made a decision, although he really hadn't, Harry shoved the note back into his pocket and slipped out of the portrait hole into the slowly dimming corridor, making sure that neither Ron nor Hermione had seen him. He crept down the hall, not entirely sure why except that, well, it was fun and it seemed like the natural thing to do.  
  
He was almost positive that there wasn't a prefect in Hogwarts that would stop him for anything more than a handshake, which saddened him. Not enough that he wasn't glad to reach the divination classroom unhindered, but it was the principle, really.  
  
Harry eased the door open and edged inside. It, too, looked exactly the same as it had the last time he'd seen it; which had been...he tried to count back and failed. Early June? May? Those months seemed so hazy. And even though everything had been chaotic, the whole class had been there, as if clinging to a sense of normalcy.  
  
The air smelled of mallowroot and herbs, and Harry inhaled deeply for a moment, remembering fear-laden voices and Parvati's hair loose around her shoulders, Lavender weaving flowers into it. Strange.  
  
"Firenze?" He called tentatively.  
  
The centaur appeared from behind a dark oak. There was a sizable scar across his torso that hadn't been there the last time Harry saw him--- before the final battle. He smiled.  
  
"Harry Potter. You do not have class with me until tomorrow."  
  
Harry nodded. Now that he was here, he wasn't quite sure what to say.  
  
Firenze didn't seem to be in any particular hurry. Harry kicked nervously at the ground, but quickly stopped, realizing that he actually wasn't nervous at all.  
  
"I...guess I wanted to ask you a question." He said finally.  
  
Firenze nodded.  
  
Harry studied the centaur's face, but couldn't read the _expression.  
  
"I assume that you actually have many questions, Harry Potter. And I cannot answer them all. I can't even answer a few. If you're lucky, I can answer one." The centaur looked thoughtful. "I thought perhaps you would come to see me. Not so soon. But someday."  
  
"Why did you think I would come?"  
  
Firenze almost smiled. "Someone who has experienced what you have, changing the world by the age of seventeen wonders more than most what the future holds." Firenze paused "You have come to ask me why you do not feel a change." He sounded mournful. "Why you are the same, when everything around you has grown beyond you."  
  
Harry froze. He was silent for several minutes, and when he spoke, his voice was icy. "No." He said quietly. "I got a letter. Owl post, but I don't know who it's from." He fished the paper out of his pocket and handed it to the centaur.  
  
Firenze may have looked taken aback, Harry wasn't sure, but he took the parchment unblinkingly and stared at it silently for a long time. Now Harry was beginning to feel nervous.  
  
Finally, the Divination professor spoke. "This is interesting. I have heard things about 'the circle', but I do not know what it is, nor what this means. I can only tell you that an end is coming, Harry Potter. Do not fear your part in it."  
  
Harry wanted to protest, to say that the end had already come and gone, that it was over, and that he got to move on with his life...but the centaur placed the now crumpled parchment in his hand, and walked away. 


End file.
